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/ 

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER: 



A FEW DAYS AMONG 



OUR SOUTHERN BRETHREN 



BY HENRY M. FIELD» D.D. 



NEW YOBK 
GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER 

1886 



BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER: 



A FEW DAYS AMONG 



OUR SOUTHERN BRETHREN. 



BY HENEY M. FIELD, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF " FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY TO THE GOLDEN HORN," 

FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN," "ON THE DESERT," "AMONG THE HOLY HILLS, 

AND " THE GREEK ISLANDS AND TURKEY AFTER THE WAR." 




NEW YOKK 
GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER 

1886 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, hy 

HENRY M. P^IELD, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 



CONTENTS 



I. Through Virginia and the Carolinas — King's 

Mountain — Over the Border into Georgia 11 

II. Atlanta Risen from its Ashes — Enterprise and 
Prosperity — Education and Temperance — Sam 
Jones — Returning Love for the Union— A 
Story of the Battle-field 23 

III. Chattanooga — The Town and the Battle — Coal 

AND Iron in the Tennessee Mountains — The 
Field of Murfreesboro — Thirty Thousand 
Graves .• 36 

IV. Nashville — Governor Bate and Ex-Governor 

Marks — Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities— 
Mrs. President Polk — Belle Meade — First 

AND Last Impressions 47 

V. Down in Alabama — The Battle of Franklin — 
Birmingham — Montgomery, the Cradle of the 
Confederacy — Governor O'Neal — The North 

and the South coming to know each other 58 

VI. New Orleans— The City and People— The Creole 
Population — French Gayety — The Carnival — 
Business— " Cotton is King"— The Exposition 
—The Churches— Dr. Palmer 71 



VI CONTENTS. 

VII. Excursion across the Mississippi — Old Estates in 
New Hands — The Salt Mines at Avery's Isl- 
and — The Bayou Teche and the Acadians 80 

VIII. Memories of the Lost Cause — The Southern Lead- 
ers — Conversation with General Beauregard 
ON THE Battle op Bull Run — Albert Sidney 
Johnston, Jefferson Davis and General Lee. 89 
IX. The Last Hospitality — A Dinner w^itii Confeder- 
ate Officers — How Northern and Southern 

Men can talk about the War 98 

X. New Orleans to Vicksburg — Sugar Plantations — 
Baton Rouge and Gov. McEnery — Major Burke 
— Vicksburg by Moonlight — Memorials op the 
Siege — Ride round the Town the next Morn- 
ing — The Union Cemetery 109 

XI. Vicksburg to Memphis — The City of Memphis and 

THE GOOD OLD StATE OF TENNESSEE 123 

XII. Kentucky — The Louisville and Nashville Rail- 

road — How Railroads bind the Country to- 
gether — Response op Confederates to Union 
Sentiments— City op Louisville — The Old Ken- 
tucky Home — A Noble Mother and her Sons. . . 134 

XIII. The Kentuckians: Their Faults — A Hot Temper 

IN THE Blood — Family Feuds — These Faults 
Redeemed by Splendid Virtues — A People 
Brave, Generous, and Hospitable — Farewell 
to the South 144 



PEEFACE. 



The author of this httle vohime disclaims any responsibil- 
ity for its aj^pearance. The several chapters were written as 
letters to the j^^^per in New York of which he is editor, 
and as such served the purpose for which they were in- 
tended. Nor did he wish to give any further importance 
to such slight sketches. They were too personal: and 
whatever of interest they might have to members of the 
party as a souvenir of a pleasant excursion, or to friends 
here and there who had welcomed it in their hospitable 
homes, they were of no importance to the general public. 
And yet for some cause they had met with a recei^tion 
which was wholly unexpected. Northern readers were 
gratified by the pictures of that New South which was 
taking the place of the Old; of its new life, new industries, 
and new ambitions; while a deeper imj^ression was made 
in the South itself. Nobody could have been more sur- 
prised than the writer at the way they were copied in 
Southern papers, and spoken of in terms which seemed to 
him altogether extravagant. Seeing this, friends have 



Vlll PREFACE. 

asked permission to have them reprinted^ believing that 
in this form they might be circulated more widely, and do 
still further good. This is a consideration quite apart 
from that of literary merit, and it is this which has per- 
suaded him to yield to a wish so kindly expressed. If what 
has thus come into existence "without premeditation^' 
shall serve to promote a better feeling between the North 
and the South, its j^urpose will be fully answered. 



BLOOD IS THICKER THAIST WATER. 



I. 

THROUGH VIRGINIA AND THE CAROLINAS — KING^S MOUNT- 
AIN — OVER THE BORDER INTO GEORGIA. 

When Mr. Andrew Carnegie wrote his book, " An 
American Four-in-Hand in Britain/^ it took the pubhc by 
its very title. There was something captivating in the idea 
of seeing the Old Country once more in the good, old- 
fashioned way, from the to}) of a coach, with the horses go- 
ing at full speed, and the guard blowing liis horn; now 
mounting over the breezy downs, and now trotting swiftly 
along the quiet lanes, between the hedge-rows; reining up 
here and there in some quaint village, or turning aside to 
visit some ancient castle or cathedral; and thus, in the 
magnificent drive of a few days, seeing so much of the 
beauty and the glory of England. To such a journey no 
contrast could be greater than one by rail, which is, of all 
modes of travel, the most prosaic and commonplace; 
which is indeed so dull and dreary as only to be thought 
of with satisfaction when it is over. But there are com- 
pensations in all things. The latter mode of locomotion is 
swifter, and enables one to traverse a wider space; to sweep 
over more degrees of latitude and longitude; and thus to 



12 OUR HOST. 

see more lands and j)eople. Especially if a jiarty sets out 
in a private car, and with an engine all to itself, it is mas- 
ter of time and space, and able to move at will, travelling 
by night, and appearing with each morning in some new 
city or State. Nor is it only as an economy of time that 
a flying trip has its advantages: it has its 2)leasures 
also, as I hope to show to those who will keej) me comj)any 
in a rapid journey in the South. 

It was near the end of Winter, which had been long and 
cold. After months of ice and snow, the air was still 
sharj^ and keen, and while shivering in the chilling winds, 
one could not but feel a desire to flee away, at least for a 
brief respite, to a milder clime, and just then came the 
opportunity. It came in this way: though I am a dweller in 
a great city, where I have passed a busy life for thirty-one 
years, I have a home in the country, among the Berk- 
shire Hills where I was born, to which I fly at the apj^roach 
of Summer. Thither came last year a gentleman whom I 
had never seen before. He was a Southerner, who, though 
in the prime of manhood (a little turned of forty), was old 
enough to have been in the war. He had been a Confeder- 
ate soldier, who surrendered with Johnston, and then came 
North, with his parole in one pocket, and less than a hun- 
dred dollars in the other; and here, with nothing to depend 
upon but his own clear head and honest heart, began what 
j^roved an extraordinary career. Though he seldom spoke 
of business, I learned from others that he was a cotton 
merchant of New York, who in a few years had risen to 
the top, and was sometimes styled the cotton king. He 
was a native of East Tennessee, and it was perhaps because 
it recalled the scenery of that mountain region, that he 
took such a fondness for our Hill Country. Every day he 
was driving about, enjoying the endless succession of hill 
and valley, wood and stream. From being near neighbors, 
we soon became friends; and hence it was that I received a 



MEMBERS OF THE PARTY. 13 

letter from this gentleman, Mr. John H. Inman, saying 
that he was about to make a trip South with several 
friends, and inviting me to be of the party. 

It was at four o^clock in the afternoon of a day in 
February, in this year of grace 1886, that we went on 
board the private car of the President of the Louisville and 
Nashville Railroad, which had been placed at our service, 
as two of our company were Directors. Except a son of 
Rev. Dr. John Hall, who had received the same invitation 
as myself, I did not know one of the guests, and looked 
with a curious eye into the faces of those who were to be 
our companions for a couple of weeks. They were all 
representative men. Mr. Cornelius N. Bliss is a well- 
known merchant of New York. Mr. J. A. Bostwick was 
one of the founders of the Standard Oil Company, which is 
ready to light the world; as Mr. H. 0. Armour, of the 
great Chicago house, is ready to feed it; and Mr. Inman 
and Mr. Bliss, representing the Southern cotton, to 
clothe it; and Mr. Thomas Rutter, and Mr. Charles H. 
Bosher, both well-known railroad men, to cast up highways 
for the nation to pass over. Thus w^e had, with our 
host himself, a round half dozen " capitalists," making a 
rather formidable company. But whatever they might be 
in Wall street, whether " bulls '^ or " bears " or ravening 
wolves, in our little circle they were very quiet gentlemen, 
each disposed to contribute to the happiness of all. Mr. 
Inman took one of his clerks along to see to our letters and 
telegrams and baggage, so that we had not to look after 
anything. 

But the description of our party would not be complete 
without mention of its general factotum. " Robert " is 
a native of Jamaica, who in his early days took to the sea, 
and went on voyages to Liverpool. Then he sailed from 
Boston in a ship laden with ice for Calcutta, and spent 
several years in the East Indies, of which I had many talks 



14 OUR SPECIAL CAR. 

with, him, and found liim very intelligent. Now lie is a 
retainer of the Nashville and Louisville Company, and the 
conductor of its President's car. He was the general pro- 
vider for our table, though there was a cook besides, and 
cared for us so well that not once (except in tlie cities, 
where we spent a day or two) did we go to a hotel. In all 
things necessary for our comfort, he watched over us like 
an uncle, and to his faithfulness we owe much of the pleas- 
ure of our journey. Thus freed from care, with nothing to 
do but to enjoy ourselves, we took our seats in a sort of 
family group, and whirled away. 

I am an old traveller, and yet there is always a little 
sinking of the heart when I go from home, not knowing 
what changes may take place during the time of separation. 
But the swift motion acts upon me like a breeze at sea, 
blowing away sad thoughts, and turning me from that 
which is left behind to that which is before. 

Our special car was constructed for sight-seeing, a room 
at the end being fitted up with plate-glass on every side; 
and as this car was placed at the end of the train, one had 
but to sit here to have an unobstructed view of the country 
over which we passed. My favorite place was in an easy- 
chair close to the end, looking out upon the landscape from 
which we were fleeing away at the rate o£ forty miles an 
hour. If I had been caught up in the chariot of Elijah, I 
could hardly have had more of the sense of being carried 
through the air. And 

" Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight." 

Watching the lights in the villages as we went rushing by, 
I made to myself pictures of the people that lived in them — 
the family gathering at the close of day, the father coming 
home from his store or shop, the dear mother at the table, 
and the boys and girls seated round the shaded lamp or 



AK EXTREME OF COURTESY. 15 

the open fire. What a joy to think that our country has 
milHons of such happy homes! 

As we passed through Baltimore, or rather under it, by 
a tunnel a mile and a half long, a remark from one of the 
comj)any informed me that this was the work of our fel- 
low-traveller, Mr. Rutter, who is known throughout the 
country as the Great Tunneller, having made a specialty of 
this branch of engineering, which has wrought such 
miracles in Europe, in boring under the Alps, through the 
Mont Cenis and the St. Gothard. 

It was eleven o'clock when we reached Washington; but 
as I walked down the i^latform, I recognized the form of a 
certain Judge, whose brotherly greeting always makes my 
heart beat quicker, though we had but a few minutes to- 
gether, when our train steamed out of the station, and bore 
away into the night. 

And now appeared the extreme courtesy of my cotnpagn- 
ons tie voyage. On this car was a room reserved for the 
President, which contained a double bed, a writing-table 
and three windows. This they proposed to give up to 
me. I felt a great delicacy in accepting it, but they in- 
sisted, and so I had ''the king's chamber" for my sole 
use and occupancy; while the half dozen capitalists, repre- 
senting (according to the veracious accounts of the re- 
porters of Southern papers) not less than fifty millions, 
'' bunked " together in upj^er and lower berths, like com- 
mon mortals! The deference of the " lords temporal " to 
the one " lord spiritual " was never more fully illustrated. 

It was midnight when we crossed the Potomac at Alex- 
andria, which but a few years since was girdled with forts 
bristling with guns. Whether the forts are now dismantled, 
I know not; but if the guns are still there, they are silent; 
not a sound of war breaks the Sabbath-like stillness of the 
place, as we bear away from the river, and soon cross the 
field of Manassas, twice stained with fraternal blood. This 



16 THK01*CtH VIRCtIN^IA. 



part of Virginia was " the dark and bloody ground ^' of 
the War. Our route by the Virginia Midland Railroad leads 
us across the Btate. From the time of leaving the Potomac, 
we ascend slowly but ]3erceptibly, till (although we do not 
at any point cross the Blue Eidge) we are among its foot- 
hills. The Piedmont Air Line (a part of the Richmond 
and Danville system), which stretches from Washington City 
to Atlanta, takes its name from the fact that it runs on the 
hills, rather than in the valleys. Lynchburg, on the upper 
waters of the James River, is the retreat to which Gen. 
Lee sought to esca^^e with his army after the fall of Rich- 
mond, and where he hoj^ed, with the natural defences of 
the mountains, to be able to make a further stand and pro- 
long the struggle. Appomattox, at which, overtaken and 
surrounded by Grant and Sheridan, he was compelled to 
surrender, is but a few miles distant. 

At Danville we had another proof that we were getting 
South in a cliange of gauge, that of the Southern railway sys- 
tem being five feet, while that of the North is but four feet 
eight and a half inches. This seemed to us rather a formid- 
able matter, but it was done with a facility that surprised us. 
The train was run into a frame-work of heavy timbers, where 
our huge Pullman car was lifted into air by screws worked 
by hydrauhc machinery, and the wheels with the whole 
supporting gear run out, and that with the broader gauge 
run in, and the car was settled into its place. The change 
hardly took five minutes. But with long trains it must be 
a serious delay; and we are glad to know that it is soon to 
be done away with. In a few weeks the gauge of the whole 
railway system of the South is to be changed to conform 
to that of the North. It will cost millions, but the object 
is thought to be worth it all. May we not interpret this 
as a happy symbol of other changes by which the course of 
tilings North and South is hereafter to be run on the same 
track to the end of a common prosperity? 



CHARLOTTE, :N'0RTH CAROLINA. 17 

At day-break we were in the heart of Old Virginia, and 
at noon stopped at Charlotte in North Carolina. While 
the other passengers on the train were taking their dinner, 
we (havhig ours in our own car) were at leisure to take a 
sun-bath in the warmth that we were now feeling for the 
first time. It was delightful to be able to walk about 
without being muffled up in heavy overcoats. The air 
was so soft and balmy that we felt as if indeed the Winter 
was over and gone, and the time of the singing of birds 
had come. 

As a Southern man, Mr. Inman might be expected to 
feel an interest in any prosperous Southern town, but to 
this was added a special interest here. Something in his eye 
seemed to say that he had seen the place before. It was only 
about six miles away that he took part in the great sur- 
render of April, 1865, and received his parole as a prisoner 
of wai'! What changes time brings! Little thought the 
boy of that day — but twenty years old — tliat in twenty-one 
years more he would come back to that spot, not as a 
j^aroled soldier, but as a Northern merchant, and a prince 
among his brethren in the new home where it has been his 
lot to live, and (I may add) to achieve a success which 
could never have been his, had the fortune of war been 
other than it was. So does the great Ruler of events plan 
for us better than we know. 

The station was alive with " colored folks ^' of both sexes 
and of every age, who would be a study to an artist, and 
furnish rich subjects for the pencil of Nast. One thing I 
observed with satisfaction — the absence of a cowed look, 
which is the badge of servitude stamjied on the fore- 
head. Now they are free, and show it in every motion. 
Look at that young buck mounted on a mule! His gar- 
ments can hardly hold together, and yet he bestrides the 
beast as proudly as if he were Alexander the Great. There 
is a dash of independence in every kick of his long legs. 



18 '^WHAT OF THE NEGROES, NOW THEY ARE FREE?" 

and the rags that wave from his tattered coat seem as if 
conscious that they float in the air of freedom. 

There was one group that were evidently prepared for a 
migration. On inquiry, we learned that they were bound 
for Kansas! It seemed a strange venture for these poor 
creatures — old ^' mammies/^ with their sons and daughters 
and little grandchildren — to wander so far away from the 
place where they were born. But may not the Guiding 
Hand still lead them on? Mr. Armour tells me that, in 
their great yards and packing-houses at Kansas City, some 
of their best employes are colored men. And who knows 
but these little pickaninnies, that now cling to their moth- 
ers^ garments, may yet be the free and independent toilers 
of the mighty West? 

For those who stay in the old North State, Charlotte has 
an excellent training-school in Biddle University, whose 
fine building we saw as we entered the town. This is one 
of the most admirable institutions in the South for the 
higher education of the most promising young men of the 
colored race. 

At Charlotte a gentleman of the country, who was known 
to some of the party, met us, and accomjoanied us a few 
miles on our way. As he was the owner of a cotton factory, 
and a large employer of labor, I asked: *' How do you get 
along with the negroes now that thej' are free?^^ ''^ Very 
well,^' he said, " although they are not suited to factory 
work so well as to the field. A negro works with his hands 
rather than his brain: he is a good field-hand — good at the 
hoe or the plow. But set him to watch a loom, where he 
has nothing to do but to keep his eyes wide open, and be- 
fore he knows it those eyes will be shut and he be fast 
asleep. His place is in driving teams, cutting wood or 
drawing logs, or any kind of out-door labor." In this they 
are willing to work and for very moderate wages; although, 
as they have been bred in habits of improvidence (for as 



EFFECT OF THE CHAKGE UPOlsr THE WHITES. 19 

long as they were slaves^ they had no motive to save any- 
thing, it being the duty of their masters to take care of 
them), they are apt to spend their money as fast as they 
earn it. Their natural indolence often leads them, after 
working a few days and getthig a little ahead, to " lie oif '' 
till it is spent, and then go to work again. For this reason 
they are not always to be depended upon. To cure them 
of this slipshod way of life is of course a work of time. 
They must be educated to something better, and no doubt 
will be, as they are a simple and docile race, although it 
may take a whole generation to form them to habits of 
economy and thrift and regular industry. 

** And what has been the effect upon the whites of this 
change of relation in the two races?'^ He said it had been 
disastrous to the great land-owners, who were suddenly 
stripped of the labor needed to cultivate their large j^lanta- 
tions. But, on the other hand, where the change had 
ruined one man, it had given ten a chance to rise. Before 
the war there was no middle class between the slave-owners 
and the " poor white trash. ^' The rich planters owned all 
the land, and all the labor to cultivate it. A man who 
did not have slaves could only hoe the small j^atch of corn 
around his little cabin in the woods, eking out his subsist- 
ence by what he could get with his gun and his fishing-rod. 
Now the old j^lantations are being broken up, and even a 
poor man may earn enough by a year's labor to buy a few 
acres; and though he could not buy a slave, he may be able 
to hire one or two negroes to work for him; and if he be 
himself capable and industrious, he will in a few years be 
the owner of a small farm, and have the feeling of inde- 
pendence which belongs to a landed proprietor. Of course 
all this involves a social change, somewhat like the break- 
ing up of the Feudal System in France, when the great 
estates of the nobles were divided, and passed into the hands 
of their former peasantry. Such changes are always at- 



20 SCEKERY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

tended with sufTcriiig to the aristocratic families, but in 
the end they are for the greatest good of the greatest num- 
ber. The New South will come when the Carolinas, like 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, instead of being the ter- 
ritorial ai^panage of a few families, are divided up into tens 
of thousands of small farms, cultivated by intelligent, in- 
dependent, and self-respecting husbandmen. 

While engaged in this conversation, we were running 
along at a fearful rate. The position of our car at the end 
of the train, while it gave us advantages for sight-seeing, 
had the disadvantage of being subject to the greatest mo- 
tion, and it rocked from side to side like a ship at sea. 
The engineer seemed to be on his mettle to show us what 
he could do. The engine hissed and snorted, and rushed 
on like a wild horse of the desert, its guider '' touching it 
up'^as a California driver would touch uj).a team of a 
dozen mules with his mighty lash. The road is full of 
curves, and as we went round them at terrific speed, it 
seemed as if our " driver ^^ was cracking his whip with 
such vigor that he might crack the tail off, aiid, as our car 
was " the tail,^' he might leave us far behind. 

Had we been in search of the grand or the j^icturesque, 
we might have found it at several points by diverging a 
little from our course. A gentleman of New Orleans, who 
has been a great traveller both in his own and in other 
countries, speaks with enthusiasm of the mountain scenery 
in the western part of North Carolina, where one lofty 
peak, called Cresar^s Head, commands a view which he has 
rarely seen equalled, although he is familiar not only with 
all the mountain scenery of our own country, but with the 
far loftier ranges of Mexico and Peru. Without, howev'er, 
comparing it with the Cordilleras or the Andes, he thinks 
it far surpasses the views of which we are wont to boast, 
such as those in tlie White Hills, or any other in the United 
States east of the Rocky Mountains. 



21 



As the day wears on, we come in sight of two spots of 
interest connected with the War of the Revohition. At a 
distance on the left rises King's Mountain, on the top of 
which was fought the battle of that name in 1780. Though 
the numbers were small as compared with battles of a later 
day, the engagement was one of the hardest-fought of the 
war, and was notable as one in which a body of militia 
gained a decisive victory over regular troops. Its results, 
too, gave it an importance at the South, like that of the 
Battle of Bennington at the North, as a turning-point in 
the war, since it gave a check to the army of Cornwallis, 
as Bennington gave to that of Burgoyne, and thus dis- 
arranged the whole British cami^aign. The plan had been 
for the English army, which landed in Charleston, to make 
that a base for operations against the Southern colonies. 
Having overrun South Carolina, it was to move I^orth into 
Virginia, and take it by a fire in the rear, executing a move- 
ment not unlike that of Sherman in his march through 
Georgia. While Cornwallis marched North, Sir Henry 
Clinton, leaving New York, was to march South, and the 
two armies were to meet in Virginia, there to receive the 
final surrender of the great Rebellion. This finely planned 
campaign was entirely upset by the battle of King's Mount- 
ain, by which the advance of Cornwallis was delayed till the 
following spring; and when at last he reached Yorktown he 
had to defend himself against Washington, and not Washing- 
ton only, but against a French army landed from the French 
fleet, which had just entered Chesapeake Bay. The combined 
armies caused the siege of Yorktown to end in a surrender 
quite other than that which had been planned by the British 
commanders. All this turn of war hung on the stubborn- 
ness with which those yeomen of the South (who had 
crossed the mountains from Eastern Tennessee) fought on 
that autumn day (it was the 7th of October). Their vic- 
tory was complete. The English were defeated, and their 



22 THE BATTLE OF COWPENS. 

commander. Col. Ferguson, killed, and buried on the spot 
where he fell. The site of the battle is marked by a 
monument on the crest of the mountain, which we can just 
see as it catches the light of the setting sun. 

A few miles further, we pass the famous field of Cowpens, 
where that brave soldier. General Morgan, defeated the dash- 
ing cavalry officer. Colonel Tarleton. Of this battle I used 
to hear in my boyhood from an old negro who had been in 
it, and who de^^icted in his simple way, and yet with no little 
vividness, scenes that were still fresh in his memory. How 
far away all these events seem now, although they took place 
but little more than a hundred years ago! So completely 
have the animosities of those days died out, that the places 
of these battles are jireserved simply as a matter of historic 
interest. So may it be with the battles of a more recent 
war, that the hatreds and the bitterness shall j^ass away, 
while the result achieved in the preservation of " union and 
liberty " shall remain as a precious inheritance forever! 

It was midnight when we rolled into the station at 
Atlanta. The city seemed to be asleep, but we soon found 
that a 23ortion of it at least was wide awake: for as we en- 
tered the Kimball House, we were dazzled with a blaze of 
light, and heard a sound of festivity. A Jewish festival 
had. gathered the Israehtes from far and near — men and 
women, young men and maidens — who had come together 
to do it honor. The seven-branched golden candlestick on 
the windows told how they clung to every symbol of their 
faith. The great number of the Hebrew race in the cities 
of the South, as of the North and West, is a very noticeable 
fact. But we were too weary to be kept awake by the sound 
of music and mirth, and, after being jolted for thirty-two 
hours, were glad to stretch ourselves in beds that would not 
rock under us, and sleep the sleep of quietness and peace. 



11. 

ATLANTA EISEN FROM ITS ASHES — EDUCATION AND TEM- 
PERANCE — SAM JONES — RETURNING LOVE OF THE 
UNION — A STORY OF THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

Atlanta is a new city, yet it is one of the historic places 
of America. The war destroyed it, and the war has made it. 
During the earher campaigns, while Virginia was swept and 
made desolate, Georgia suffered little. Its turn did not 
come till the last year when it was to learn how terrible war is. 
It is less than twenty-two years since General Sherman, 
who had been steadily advancing, fighting at every step, 
reached this city, and planted his batteries against it. This 
brought the crisis of the war. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was 
removed, and General Hood placed in command, a change 
which was immediately followed by a fierce attack on the 
Union lines, which ended in a bloody repulse; and from this 
point Sherman began his memorable march to the sea. 

Naturally these are bitter memories for the South; and 
yet such are the compensations which sometimes come 
from war, that Atlanta, which was then destroyed, has so 
fully recovered that it is now the most prosperous city in 
the South. It has become a great railroad center, from 
which lines radiate to all parts of the country. Hence it 
draws to itself the trade and commerce, not only of 
Georgia, but of surrounding States. The result is a busi- 
ness activity which one sees nowhere else. 

The first sign of civilization to the eye of a traveller is a 
good hotel. Judged by this standard, Atlanta stands in 
the front rank of cities, at least in this portion of the coun- 
try, as it has the best hotel we have seen in the Gulf States, 
not excepting the St. Charles in New Orleans. When we 



34 THE REBUILDING OF ATLANTA. 

were here two years ago, the old Kimball House had been 
burned to the ground. But out of its ashes it has risen 
again, far grander than before, of fine architectural propor- 
tions, with wide halls and lofty ceilings; rooms ample in 
size and handsomely furnished; and all the " modern im- 
provements " of the best hotels at the North. I am not 
surprised to learn that commercial travellers, who make 
their business tours through the South, try to come round 
to Atlanta for Sunday, to wash off the dust of the week in 
warm baths; to sleep in clean, sweet beds, and get a 
" square meal;" and thus refresh themselves for the cam- 
paign of the week that is to follow. 

The rebuilding of the Kimball House is a fair type of the 
rebuilding of Atlanta itself. Never was there a more com- 
plete recovery from ruin. Twenty-two years ago this val- 
ley among the hills was like the Valley of Gehenna, into 
which shot and shell were poured, as fire from heaven fell 
upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Besieged, bombarded, and 
burned, it seemed as if its fate was to be swept from the 
face of the earth. Yet the besom of destruction that swept 
away the old city but cleared a wider space for the new. 
Instead of the land being sown with salt, that it might not 
bear any green thing, on this very spot, blasted by fire, has 
sprung up the representative city of that New South which 
is to take the place of the Old. Atlanta is the first-born 
Child of the Resurrection, and has rightfully taken the 
place of the first-born, as the Capital of this Empire State 
of the South, 

Of the rapid growth of Atlanta, we had full proof this 
morning as some friends called with carriages to take us 
about. There was notliing of the sleepy, half-dead look of 
a Southern city in the old days. The streets were full of 
busy life. Shops and stores and banks were open, with the 
same look of activity and prosperity that may be seen in 
the most enterprising Northern city. Buildings were going 



COMPRESSING COTTOIT. 25 

up in every quarter. On all sides was heard the sound of 
the hammer, or of the stone-cutter, or the buzzing of the 
saw-mill, which was turning out the boards and timbers 
which were to enter into new dwellings and new ware- 
houses. As Atlanta is in the heart of the Cotton Belt, 
and the growing of cotton is the chief business of the 
surrounding country, a Northern visitor is very much in- 
terested in the huge warehouses in which is stored the 
product of this great national industry. Take them all 
together, these warehouses must cover many acres, in 
which is piled up the growth of whole counties, and indeed 
of a large portion of the State. 

Until recently the great difficulty in the handling of cot- 
ton in large quantities has been from its bulkiness. The 
precious commodity, being of a springy texture, bulged out 
in most unwieldy fashion. This difficulty is now removed 
by a gigantic '' Compress,'' in which a weight of many 
tons is brought to bear upon a bale of cotton, squeezing it 
into one third its former space. It was very interesting to 
watch the operations of this monster, a huge Leviathan, 
which snapped up a bale of cotton as a whale might snap 
up a porpoise, crushing it with one grip of its tremendous 
jaws. Thus ''flattened out," the bale is instantly held 
fast by bands of sheet-iron that are clamped around it. 
This compression of bulk is of immense importance in ship- 
ments of cotton abroad. A ship thus laden will not only 
carry three times as much, but its cargo is three times as 
safe against fire, that sometimes breaks out in a ship's hold, 
and, finding in the loose cotton an inflammable material, 
not unfrequently destroys both cotton and ship together. 

After seeing the cotton in bulk, we paid a visit to some 
of the large sales-rooms, where hundreds of " samples " 
are spread out on long tables, and are examined with the 
greatest care, that the most delicate fibres may be selected 
for the finest products of the loom. 



26 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

But while we looked with wonder at these evidences of 
material wealth, some of us were still more interested in the 
Public Schools, which Mr. Robert J. Lowry, the Chairman 
of the Board of Education, kindly volunteered to show us. 
These schools are a matter of city j)nde, and show how 
Atlanta is becoming like a Northern city, an'd Georgia like 
a Northern State, in this great matter of education. As 
we rode up to a large building on the top of a hill, we were 
startled by a cry of fire, at which a thousand children came 
pouring out of the different doors. They seemed to move 
with remarkable composure, and we soon learned that this 
was merely an exercise of discipline, to accustom the pupils 
to self-control; so that, in case of a real danger, they might 
not fall into a panic, which is often a cause of greater loss 
than the fire itself. AVhen the exercise was over, and the 
pupils had had a sniff of the fresh morning air, they re- 
turned to the uninjured building, where Mr. Grady, of '' The 
Atlanta Constitution,'^ who is the general favorite in this 
city, made some very happy remarks, which put every- 
body in the best of humor. Thus we made the round of 
several schools, which gave me the same sort of pleasure 
which I find in visits to the schools of my native New 
England. 

But somehow or other (I can not tell exactly how it was) 
it was the Atlanta University, for colored young men and 
women, which gave me a deeper feeling than mere satisfac- 
tion. The pupils were not mere children, but young men 
and women. We had no time for recitations, but they sung 
to us in such a way that, before I knew it, I was trying to 
choke something in my throat. It seems as if God had be- 
stowed upon this race the gift of song to lighten their hum- 
ble and lowly lot. In the days of servitude, they sung on 
the old plantations songs that have still a strange power. 
It will show how well acquainted I am with Southern geog- 
raphy, that one of my first questions was *^ Where is the 



THE TEMPERANCE BATTLE. 27 

Suwanee river?" so often had I found myself humming, 
even when on the other side of the globe : 

" 'Wa}^ down on the Suwanee River 

There's where the old folks stay," 

a song that never has such a flavor of home as when sung 
by rich African voices. And when it comes to religion, it 
seems as if the loneliness and sorrow of years were poured 
forth in the wailing cry: 

" Nobody knows the sorrows I've seen — 
Nobody knows but Jesus." 

Sad hearts sing the sweetest songs, as crushed flowers 
yield the sweetest perfume, and it may be one purpose of 
God in permitting the African race such a long night of 
sorrow, that they might sing in j)athetic strains the song 
of deliverance. 

Next to general Education as an influence in raising 
the standard of public intelligence and public morality, is 
the victory recently gained in the cause of Temperance. 
Atlanta, as is well known, has lately been the scene of a 
fierce struggle; and although the storm is over, there is a 
long ground-swell, which shows how violently the sea of 
public opinion has been agitated. In the division into two 
strong parties, the greater portion of the Christian popula- 
tion have taken the Temperance side. To understand the 
attitude of the question in Georgia, it should be remem- 
bered that several years since the State passed a Local 
02:)tion Law, which gave to each county (not city or town- 
ship) the right to decide for itself whether it would permit 
the sale of intoxicating liquors. There was a special reason 
for some decided action. In every county there is a cen- 
tral point — it may be only a cross-roads, or it may be dig- 
nified as the site of the county court-house— which would 



28 THE LOCAL OPTION LAW. 

be chosen by worthless fellows as the place to open the low- 
est ' ' groggeries/' which would soon make it the center of 
demoralization to the negroes in all the country round. In 
the old slavery days they could be ke2:)t on the plantations, 
and be subject to some sort of discipline, by which they 
could be guarded from temptation. But since they are 
their own masters, they can go to a '^ saloon '' as freely as 
white folks, and stagger home with ' ' the glorious sense of 
independence " of so maiiy white drunkards. As they are 
fond of drink, they are tejnpted to steal cotton from their 
employers, that they may exchange it for bottles of whiskey. 
By this underground traffic, the planters are doubly injured 
— in being robbed of their cotton, and in the drunkenness 
of the class on which they are obliged to dejoend for labor. 
It is therefore a matter of self-jirotection to shut up these 
grog-shops: their own safety depends uj^on it. Nor do 
"they have to wait for years to get a Prohibition law through 
the Legislature. AVith the right of Local Option, tliey can 
enact a km for themselves — a law which may be more effect- 
, ive than a general law, inasmuch as it is their oivn act ; 
and having voted for it, they are personally interested to 
enforce it: tliey are at once the legislators and the execu- 
tive. 

In the cities, of course, the struggle was greater, and it 
has been particularly fierce here in Atlanta. There are 
large moneyed interests involved in the sale of whiskey, and 
these are supported by the mighty army of tipplers, big and 
little — the old topers and the petty swiggers — all banded 
together to maintain the freedom (!) to get drunk, and to 
sell that which makes men drunk. 

Against this combination there was a body of earnest 
men and women, who had the welfare of the city at heart; 
and the community just then was keyed up to a high pitch 
of religious excitement by a revival which was in progress. 
Atlanta is the home of Sam Jones, the noted revivalist. 



THE KEGRO VOTE — HOW IT WAS WON. 29 

who, with the ardor of a soldier^ pitched into the fight, 
and, Hke a military leader, animated his followers, whom 
he inspired with a determination not to be seduced on the 
one hand, nor to be cowed on the other. Thus marshalled 
in ranks, they stood shoulder to shoulder, like one of Stone- 
wall Jackson ^s old brigades, and fought the good fight to 
the bitter end. 

But with all this they could not have won the battle with- 
out the help of the colored vote. For this both sides angled 
dexterously. But to the honor of the blacks be it said, 
they for the most part threw their votes on the side of 
Temperance. Many influences, social as well as political, 
contributed to this. As a race, they are fond of marching 
and music, and any cause vvhich puts them in the ranks, 
and sets them to a kind of military drill, gives them an im- 
portance in their own eyes. Nor were they above the at- 
tentions of ladies of high social position, who opened 
booths, at which they gave to their dark-skinned allies 
" the cup tliat cheers but not inebriates '' — an attention 
which was very flattering to Cfesar and Pompey. A glass 
of whiskey from the keeper of a grog-shop to an emancipat- 
ed slave, was not half so sweet as a cup of tea or coffee 
from the hand of the daughter of his old master. By such 
means these fair advocates of Temperance won the hearts 
of the colored voters, with whom the streets were alive, as 
they paraded up and down, like soldiers marching to battle. 

The day came, and the issue was doubtful. The battle 
was long and hard. But the end was a victory for the 
Temj^erance cause such as it has never had before. 

But its enemies never give.up. Defeated at the polls, they 
tried it in the courts. All sorts of legal quibbles were used to 
defeat the will of the people. Still so far their action has 
been sustained; and a lawyer engaged for the other side 
frankly admitted to me that he had little hope of reversing 
in the courts the decision which had been made at the polls. 



30 MIXIKG RELIGION AND POLITICS. 

Our colored brethren sometimes mix religion and pol- 
itics in rather a strange way. Simple-hearted creatures 
as they are, they are apt to think that everybody who is on 
their side is on the Lord's side, and do not hesitate to ask 
the Lord to *' be wery particular/' and " to see to it His- 
self " that their friends are duly provided for. Governor 
Colquitt is said to have owed his great popularity to his en- 
tire freedom from pride: his readiness to stop in the most 
public place and talk with any poor man, asking after his 
welfare in a tone of real interest that made him feel that 
he was somebody, and did him " a heap o' good." This 
may account for such appeals as the following, with which 
a black Boanerges stormed the court of heaven. It was in 
a large meeting, when all were in a state of excitement, and 
their fervent " sighings " and " breathings " were audible 
over the house. In the midst of such a seething mass knelt 
a son of thunder, who, lifting up his voice to the mighty 
God of Jacob, exclaimed: ^' Lord! we thank Thee that 
we have a Governor who is not ashamed to speak to the 
colored man when he meets him in the street, and to treat 
him like a brother! And if he should desire to be re-elect- 
ed to the high office which he now holds, we pray that he 
inay he elected by a handsome majority T' This certainly 
was " prevailing prayer," if not with the Lord, at least 
with the voters, who answered the petition with a chorus of 
fervent aniens. A man who could rally such forces, earthly 
and heavenly, to his support, could hardly fail of his elec- 
tion. 

I have spoken of Sam Jones, the revivalist, of whom I 
had heard nothing but his eccentricities. From certain ex- 
pressions quoted in the papers, I had supposed him to be 
merely a mountebank. But I am told by those who know 
him well that he is a man of truly devout sj^irit, who is not 
at all anxious to make himself conspicuous, but is " in 
dead earnest " to save his fellow-men. Some intimate that 



SAM JONES THE REVIVALIST. 31 

he *^ lets off '' these strange expressions to pique the curios- 
ity of the multitude, believing that many who 

" Come to scoff will remain to pray." 

Mr. Grady, who has a knowledge of men that is quite suffi- 
cient to enable him to detect a charlatan, speaks of him as 
his friend, and as a man of genuine j)ower, of honest con- 
victions, and of a warm Christian heart. His illustrations, 
it must be confessed, are often homespun, and yet they are 
sometimes very apt. For example: "I was riding with 
him one day," said my informant, *' when the conversation 
turned on the subject of Faith. I wanted a reason for 
everything, and could not understand howl must * believe ' 
in order to be saved. ' I'll tell you how it is,"* he said. 
* Here's a farmer who has got a spring running into his 
barn-yard to water his cattle. He has fitted it up so that 
the pressure of a hoof on a plank, as a creature walks up 
to ih.Q trough, opens a pipe and sets the water running, and 
when the creature steps back, it closes, and the water in the 
trough runs off, to be filled again by the next comer. But 
now comes along a conceited young steer, that thinks this 
contrivance is all a humbug, and walks round the trough, 
and looks into it on the other side and sees it empty, and goes 
off in a huff, and lies down in a corner of the yard, and there 
lies day after day till it dies of thirst. It dies for the want of 
faith. It's Just so in religion. Don't stop to reason about 
it, but walk right up to the spring, and drink and live. ' " 

Such conversations gave an added charm to our drives 
about Atlanta. Our sight-seeing ended in that which is 
the most pleasant of all sights, the interior of a Christian 
home, in which we were entertained at luncheon, where I 
was gratified to see that, with every variety and luxury on 
the table, not a drop of wine was set before the guests — an 
adherence to principle which was repeated a day or two 
after in one of the first residences of Nashville. 



33 DINNER WITH THE GOVERNOR. 

Again taking to our carriages we drove out the long 
avenues, which are lined with beautiful residences, the best 
proof of the general 23rosperity of this Southern caj^ital. 

The evening was reserved for a more general demonstra- 
tion of good feeling, in a dinner given at the Kimball 
House, at which were present the Governor of the State, 
and the Mayor and leading residents of the city. For such 
hospitality I was quite unprepared, as were other members 
o^" the party, no one of us presuming to appropriate it to 
himself. We all knew that it was a mark of respect in- 
tended for our host, in which we were included as his 
guests. Wherever we come we find a general regard for 
Mr. Inman, which we are at no loss to understand. He is 
a son of the South, who shared her fortunes in her dark 
days, and who, coming North after the war, has had a 
success of which the people of his native State are 
proud, while they are still more gratified to see that he 
has never lost his affection for the land of his birth, and 
that his highest ambition is to do what he can to re-create 
its industry and restore its prosperity. Wherever he was 
called out, as he was at every place at which we stopped, 
though he sjioke with great modesty, his few words needed 
no other eloquence than the sj^irit which they breathed. 
They were to the effect that, though he had lived for the 
last twenty years at the North, his heart was still here; and 
that if he had obtained any position of means or influence, 
whatever of ability or of experience or of credit he might 
possess which could be of benefit to the South, it was at 
her service — words which were uttered with such simj^licity 
and genuine feeling that they produced a deej) impression 
on every listener. 

At the dinner Mr. Grady presided, enlivening the con- 
versation with his wit and humor, and introducing the 
several speakers with a charm all his own. Naturally the 
first sentiment in Southern hearts was " Georgia,^' for she 



SPEAKING FREELY OF THE WAE. 33 

was " their mother/^ with which was coupled the name of 
her honored Executive. To this Governor McDaniel re- 
pHed with great kindness, welcoming us, and all Northern 
men who would see for themselves the real condition of the 
South, to Georgia and her sister States, wishing that the 
Union now restored might never be broken. 

Mr. Grady had referred to the war without reserve and 
without bitterness. Indeed he had paid a handsome tribute 
to General Sherman, though he said " he was not a very 
* keerful ' man with fire-arms!^' Yet he honored him as a 
gallant soldier. Perceiving that the time had come when 
Northerners and Southerners could speak of these things 
with perfect calmness, I was glad to respond to the spirit 
thus manifested, in giving a picture of General Sherman as 
I saw him last. It was at the funeral of General Grant. In 
that last tribute of respect I was permitted to take part, 
having been requested to represent the Presbyterians, as 
Bishop Potter represented the Episcopalians, and we rode 
together. In the second carriage behind us sat General 
Sheridan with General Buckner; side by side with whom 
(for the carriages moved in double column) were Gen- 
eral Sherman and General Joseph E. Johnston, the two 
chieftains who twenty-two years ago were opposed to each 
other in the battles which raged round this very city of 
Atlanta. All along Broadway and Eifth avenue, a distance 
of miles, the streets were black with human beings, hushed 
and silent as they saw pass by the catafalque on which 
rested the body of our great soldier; and when at the close 
of the day the doors of the mausoleum swung open, and he 
was laid to rest, while a group of warriors stood round with 
uncovered heads, all felt that the strife and the bitterness 
of the past were buried in that honored grave. 

In the procession of that day rode a Southern officer, of 
whom (as his home is here in Atlanta) it seems not inap- 
propriate to tell a story in harmony with the sjDirit of the 



34 REMINISCENCE OF THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

hour. As it has been related to me by hoth the actors in 
the scene described, I can vouch for its literal accuracy. I 
give it as nearly as I can in the very words of that gallant 
soldier of Georgia, General John B. Gordon: 

" It was the first day of Gettysburg. The battle was in 
progress when I came into it with my division, and struck- 
the Federal line at an angle, which caused it to break, 
doubling on itself, so that it was driven back in some dis- 
order. As it was retreating, and our line advancing, in 
crossing a field I saw an officer lying on the ground, and 
dismounted to see if I could render him any assistance. 
Eaisinghim up, the blood s2:)Lirted from him, and I thought 
that he must be mortally wounded. To my inquiry for his 
name, he answered that he was General Barlow of New 
York.* I asked him if I could be of any service to him. 
He said ' No,^ and told me to leave him and go and do my 
duty. But on my pressing the offer of assistance, he asked 
me to send word to his wife, who was in the rear of General 
Headers army. I answered that I would not only send to 
her, but send for her. I called for bearers, who were 
coming on the field to pick up the wounded, to bring a 
stretcher. They took him uj) and carried him back to ' the 
branch ' (the name given at the South to a stream), on 
which a camp hospital had been improvised ; and I sent an 
aid with a flag of truce to the lines to forward the message 
to the wife of the wounded and, as I supposed, dying officer. 
The message reached its destination, although Mrs. Barlow 
was seventeen miles back from the front, and at two 
o'clock in the morning word was brought to me that she 
was at the lines. I sent word to have her immediately 
passed through, but bade the messenger tell her that her 

* An officer of whom we heard a great deal during the war, as 
his courage made him always seek the place of danger, so that it 
was not uncommon after a battle to see his name reported with the 
brief announcement: "Wounded as usual!" 



A RESURRECTION^" PROM THE DEAD. 35 

husband was ' desperately wounded. ' I had no idea that 
she would find him alive. 

" The next morning the battle was resumed, and all that 
had passed was forgotten in the great struggle. It was 
nearly two years more to the close of the war. I remained 
in the army to the last, and was with General Lee when he 
surrendered at Appomattox. When all was over I returned 
home to help restore the fortunes of my State, if anything 
were left to her in the general ruin. Years passed on, and 
I was chosen United States Senator from Georgia. When 
in Washington, I was invited one evening to dine at Mr. 
Clarkson N. Potter's. I did not arrive till the guests were 
seated. Among the others to whom I was introduced I 
heard the name of Barlow, but took no notice of it till 
there was a pause in the conversation, when I turned to the 
gentleman so designated and said, ' Pray, sir, may I ask if 
you are a relative of the General Barlow who was killed at 
Gettysburg?' Imagine my astonishment at the answer: * I 
am the man!' ^ And you, sir,' he asked in reply — * are you 
the General Gordon who picked me up on the field?' I 
could not deny it. At this he sprang to his feet, and I 
thought would have leaped over the table. And then he 
told the story of the scene in which we had met before, at 
which not only the ladies, but the men round the table, 
found it difficult to control their emotion." 

How can officers who have met thus on the field of battle 
ever regard each other but with manly affection? And can 
we of the North ever look upon men who have shown such 
qualities as " enemies"? On the contrary, we claim them 
as our friends and brothers, and would defend them with 
our lives. 

It was nearly eleven o'clock when we rose from the table 
only to renew, with many a warm grasp of the hand, the 
expressions of mutual regard. Half an hour later, we were 
on our way to Chattanooga. 



III. 

CHATTANOOGA — THE TOWN AND THE BATTLE — THE CHAEGE 
OF CLEBURNE AT CHICKAMAUGA — COAL AND IRON 
IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS — SOUTH PITTSBURG — 
MURFREESBORO— THIRTY THOUSAND GRAVES. 

It is one of the infelicities of '' travelling in state, ^' with 
a special train, that we undertake to do too much, and are 
whirled about from point to ]3oint without seeing many 
things which we could see if we took it more deliberately. 
It was toward midnight when we left Atlanta, and at day- 
break were at Cliattanooga — an easy way of getting over 
the distance; but just here we should have been quite will- 
ing to go more slowly and in the clear light of day, for this 
is historic ground. In these few hours we had jDassed over 
the scene of the great campaign of Sherman in 18G4, end- 
ing with the capture of Atlanta and the March to the Sea. 
A book has recently appeared entitled " A Horseback Ride 
from Chattanooga to Atlanta, ^^ written by one who took 
this means of revisiting the scenes of great events in which 
he had taken part. He might well spend weeks and 
months in riding slowly over groimd where every day he 
came upon the scene of a battle. That memorable Sum- 
mer these hills blazed with camp-fires for more than a 
hundred miles. As I lay awake, recalling these events, 
which are not even yet so far distant, I realized more than 
ever the change which had come over the scene! The moon 
was shedding her tranquil light on a land in perfect peace. 
Instead of the booming of guns, which then woke the 
echoes of these hills, not a sound was heard save the rush- 
ing of streams, or the moaning of the wind through the 

■ (36) 



RIDING ABOUT CHATTANOOGA. 37 

forest. Blessed stillness! better than all tlie pomp and 
magnificence of war. And blessed peace ! the benediction 
of God upon the world. 

In the morning our car was standing in a net- work of 
tracks, which marks the entrance of different roads to this 
great railway center. The first peep oat of the window 
showed the outline of Lookout Mountain, on the top of 
which Hooker fought above the clouds; and as soon as we 
could step to the end of the car, before us lay the whole 
line of Missionary Eidge, which was held by Bragg 's army 
until it was driven from it in the tremendous charge of 
Grant at the Battle of Chattanooga. 

Very soon familiar faces began to aj^pear, for, as it was 
known that we were coming, the friends of Mr. Inman 
(who are numerous here as everywhere at the South) were 
on hand to greet us. With my eagerness to know every- 
thing, I began to ask questions about the looints of historic 
interest. Our time was limited, as we had another place to 
visit during the day, and were to be in Nashville at night; 
but I was determined to see what I could in two or three 
hours, and as soon as we could despatch breakfast, carriages 
were waiting for us. Cameron Hill, which rises above the 
town, furnishes the finest point of view, and to this we 
directed our course. The streets were deep in mud, but 
we went splashing through them, as if we heard a call to 
battle and must be in at the fray. It is over a mile even 
to the foot of the liill, from which it rises like a cone in an 
ascent that is somewhat difficult for carriages. Impatient 
at the slow progress, I pushed open the door, and, leaping 
out, bounded up the hill as fast as my legs could carry me, 
and was soon on the top, when, looking back, I saw my 
companions at the bottom of the hill — on foot, indeed, but 
moving very slowly, as if they feared that a battery of Con- 
federate artillery might open upon them. In the presence 
of such danger it was wonderful to see the calmness and 



38 THE FIRST SHELL IN THE TOWK. 

steadiness with which this Heavy Brigade advanced up the 
hill, and at length carried the position without the loss of 
a man! No doubt it was a hard pull for them, but the 
view was worth it. Seldom have I seen in this country, or 
in any country, a position commanding a more extensive 
or beautiful panorama. As the hill slopes on every side, 
there is nothing to intercept the view, and a single sweep 
of the eye takes in the whole horizon. The configuration 
of the place is remarkable: it seems as if formed by nature 
to be the scene of military operations, as it is a natural 
fortress — a valley girdled with a circumvallation of hills. 
The eifect of this mighty am^^hitheatre is heightened by 
the broad band of silver running through it. The Ten- 
nessee, which flows along the base of Cameron Hill, so near 
that it seems as if we could throw a j)ebble into it, does not 
take a straight course through the valley, but winds about 
as if it had tried to force a i3assage in every direction, and, 
being driven back, had turned like a lion at bay, till finally 
it had broken through in the distance, and rolled away to 
the North, to empty itself at last into the Ohio. 

I had the good fortune to have in the carriage with me 
two Confederate officers (indeed, to confess the truth, I 
looked out for this in the first place) who had been in the 
Battle of Chattanooga, and could speak of it as eye-wit- 
nesses. So, as we stood on the top of the hill, I said to 
one of them : ' ' Now give me the points of compass and 
the position of the armies. '' " Well,^^ he answered, *' you 
see across the river yonder a ridge covered with trees. 
That way the Federals came. Though we knew that they 
were approaching, yet at last they appeared suddenly. I 
remember the first shell that fell in Chattanooga. It was 
on Thanksgiving-day in 1863. The people were in church. 
I am sorry to say I was differently employed. Henry Wat- 
terson — now of '' The Courier Journal " of Louisville — and I 
were editing a little paper called " The Chattanooga Rebel. ^' 



A '' LOVE-TAP " AT MISSIOif ARY RIDGE. 39 

Instead of being in church, as we ought to have been, we 
were playing cards when from the forest beyond the river 
came the booming of a gun, and the shell seemed to burst 
over our heads. We did not stop to finish the game!" 
Whether the unaccustomed sound gave a lurid turn to his 
editorials afterward, he did not say; though I believe " The 
Rebel '' continued to appear, whistling to keep its courage 
up, until " the Yankees ■" became rather numerous, and it 
concluded that discretion was the better part of valor, 
and Chattanooga knew it no more. 

" Did you see anything more of the war?'^ 
"Yes, indeed: here,^' pointing to an ugly scar on his 
face, " is the mark of a shot which one of your boys gave 
me as they charged up Missionary Ridge/ ^ I must say 
that my companion spoke of this little incident with perfect 
good nature (a soldier is generally proud of his wounds), 
looking upon it as a kind of " love-tap '' — a gentle touch 
which some sharpshooter had given him " just to remember 
him by.-'^ It is very pleasant to see how the men of both 
sides talk of these things without a particle of resentment. 
Like the brave fellows they were, since they were in war, 
they learned to take it as it came — its ups and downs, its 
fortunes and misfortunes, its victories and defeats; and 
now that it is all over, they speak of it only with the inter- 
est which they must feel in recounting the most eventful 
period of their lives. 

Returning to our car, we found other friends waiting for 
us, who entertained us for the half hour before our dejmrt- 
ure with experiences, not of war, but of politics and elec- 
tions. Judge Bradford told a good story of a campaign 
which he had made among the mountains of Eastern Ten- 
nessee. An election is a great event for the people of the 
country round, who look forward to it as they would to a 
circus, where they are to have a varied entertainment. 
Sometimes the young people, taking advantage of the mis- 



40 MAJOR B AX TEE. 

cellaneous gathering, have a dance under the trees; and if 
a pohtician were to frown upon them, he would probably 
lose his election. Imagine, then, the consternation of the 
Judge when he arrived on the ground, to find that the fid- 
dler was drunk! '* But/^ he said, '' as good luck would 
have it, in liis early days he had learned to play on the 
violin; and taking it in his hands, he played with such vigor 
that, though it was a district which polled between four and 
five hundred votes, lie got every vote, and was triumphantly 
elected!" 

As we resumed our ride, my thoughts went back to the 
war. It was impossible to banish it from our minds, near 
as we were to the scene of great events. In the group seat- 
ed in the saloon of the car was a gentleman a little over 
forty years of age, of very manly appearance, to whom I 
was introduced as Major Baxter of Nashville. The military 
title led me to inquire if he, too, had taken part in these stir- 
ring scenes. He answered very modestly as to himself, not 
wishing to magnify anything he had done (though I learned 
from others that he had been a very brave and gallant 
ofiicer), yet he was willing to give me any information. I 
found that he was but a boy when the war broke out, and 
had run away from his father's house, and enlisted in a 
company of artillery, and was afterward put in command 
of a battery. He had been at one time attached to the 
cavalry of Forrest, who was his ideal of an officer, and 
often accompanied him in his daring exploits. He had once 
been taken prisoner, and had tried to be exchanged by slip- 
ping in unnoticed among the privates, but was discovered be- 
fore the exchange took place, and ordered out of the ranks, 
to be reserved for a different treatment — a circumstance 
which put him for a few hours in a painful uncertainty as 
to his fate. However, he was afterward exchanged and 
returned to the army. He was in the Battle of Chicka- 
mauga, but said, as others so often tell us, that it is impos- 



CHAKGE OF CLEBURNE AT CHICKAMAUGA. 41 

sible for a soldier or an officer, whose duties detain him in 
one part of the field, to get a general idea of what is going 
on in a battle which extends over many miles. 

One incident had remained in his recollection as the most 
brilliant that he had ever seen in war. The field of Ohicka- 
mauga is about ten miles from Chattanooga. The battle 
had been raging all day, and the right of our army had 
been defeated, and was retreating toward Chattanooga, 
which left the whole force of Bragg^s army free to sweep 
round to our left, where General Thomas was holding his 
position with a stubborn resistance, against which the Con- 
federates dashed themselves in vain. Again and again they 
had been brought up to the attack, only to be mowed down 
by the Federal cannon. It was late in the afternoon, and 
they hesitated to advance again in the face of this withering 
fire. A council of war was held in front of his battery, 
which was just in the rear of the line, at which he counted 
thirteen generals. The army had been fighting for hours, 
and some thought that it was better to withdraw, and let 
the troo23s rest till morning before the battle was resumed. 
But at last it was decided that General Cleburne should 
make one more attempt. Instantly he drew up his division 
in line of battle with as much precision as if they were on 
parade, riding along the line to see if every man was in his 
place. When the signal was given to charge, they rushed 
forward with a yell. For a few minutes all knowledge of 
what was going on was lost in the roar of battle. Then 
suddenly it seemed as if the woods were full of Federal sol- 
diers — whether flying or advancing to attack, he could not 
tell — and his men stood to their guns. But it soon appeared 
that the charge of Cleburne had broken the line, and the 
Confederates camped on the ground which Thomas had 
held during the day. 

Of course this was an exact and literal account of that 
part of the battle which my informant saw, although the 



42 THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 

result could not have been so great as lie at the moment 
supposed; for, though a part of our line was broken, this 
did not involve a general defeat of Thomas, who held his 
wing of the army firmly together, and brought it safely 
from the field. 

I was the more interested in this account because I had 
once had a very minute description of the battle from Gen- 
eral Garfield, who was Rosecrans's chief of staff; and who, 
after the defeat of our right wing, instead of following his 
chief back into Chattanooga, turned his horse^s head toward 
the sound of the cannon, and rode at full sjjeedto join Gen- 
eral Thomas, who was holding his own against fearful odds. 
General Garfield told me how magnificently that great sol- 
dier saved the day. I shall never forget his description of 
the opportune arrival of General Gordon Granger, who, 
hearing the sound of the guns, marched without orders, 
and came on the field at a critical moment. The particu- 
lars of this I afterward had from General Granger himself, 
so that I felt that I was pretty well informed about the 
Battle of Chickamauga; but I was glad to have this account 
from Major Baxter, as it threw still another side-light on one 
of the great battles of the war, and showed how desperately 
both armies fought on that terrible day. 

While listening to these details, our special train was go- 
ing at full speed, fiying away from the scene of this great 
struggle at the rate of forty miles an hour; and still we 
were on the same trail, over wliich both armies passed, 
marching and fighting. Some years before the war Chat- 
tanooga had been chosen as the point of meeting of the rail- 
roads which connect Tennessee and Georgia; and so it be- 
came an all-important military position, since the road that 
passed through it was the great artery on which the Union 
army must depend both for re-enforcements and supplies. 
Hence the order of Grant to Thomas, after the disastrous 
Battle of Chickamauga, to " hold Chattanooga at all haz- 



SCHOOL-HOUSE ON A MOUNTAIN PEAK. 43 

« 

ards/' The President of the Eailroad Company (Major 
Thomas), who came down from Nashville to meet us, wa 
in its service at the time; and as we stood at the end o„ 
the car, he told me how he followed the Confederate army 
when it retreated, putting a red flag at every bridge as a 
signal that it was to be destroyed, to hold in check the pur- 
suit of the Federals, who had to stop at every stream till 
they built a new bridge across it. 

But here is something better than war. " Look here. 
Doctor,^' said the Major, " I will show you the highest 
school-house in the United States ;^^ and as we whirled 
round a bend of the road, he pointed upward, and craning 
our necks, I spied indeed a school -house perched on a peak 
which rose high above us. As it was painted white, it could 
be seen far and near, as if it had been placed there to serve 
as a light-house on the top of the mountains. It was a 
picturesque object, standing among the rocks and pines; 
though where the children could come from to fill it, it 
might puzzle one to discover. But the building itself was 
a sign of human habitation, like one of those shelters on 
the High Alps, which show where the shepherd feeds his 
flock. More than that, it was like a chapel or a cross, 
such as I have seen at some high point of the Alps: a sign 
that where men live, there is care, not only for the body, but 
for the mind and soul —a reflection which gave a pleasant 
turn to our thoughts from th» dark memories of war. 

And now comes another welcome sign of industry and 
peace. We had been hastening our speed, that we might 
find time to sto23 at some works belonging to the Tennessee 
Coal and Iron and Railroad Company, in Avliich Mr. Inman 
is interested. Shooting off by a side-road, we came in sight 
of the place, where the tall cliimneys, pouring out a volume 
of flame and smoke, showed that the works were on a large 
scale. As we arrived, one of the furnaces had just made a 
large casting, and the iron, though still red-hot, was slowly 



44 COAL ANB IKOK IN^ THE MQUNTAIKS. 

cooling in the moulds; and now another furnace was 
opened, and the molten mass jioured from it, like one 
of the streams of lava from the crater of Vesuvius — a river 
of fire, which is j^resently divided into thirty or forty 
streams, and these into other smaller rivulets. And now, 
reader, do you know what gives the namo to pig-iron? You 
have but to stand here a moment to see. As you observe 
how the stream flows through long and wide channels, 
from which it is diverted into the lesser ones, you see 
how naturally these small moulds, su2>plied from the large j-, 
suggest the idea of so many little ^^igs drawing sustenance 
from the maternal breast. In this case the mother has a 
large litter, two or three hundred, and must have a corre- 
sponding reservoir to supply her numerous progeny. The 
workmen were negroes, and as their black faces were 
grimed with sweat and coal, and yet glowing with excite- 
ment, as they were lighted up by the reflection from the 
hot iron, they looked like imps of darkness s]jorting with 
infernal fires. The sight took me back to the time of the 
war, when I visited the Water Shoj^s in Springfield, Mass., 
which were kept going day and night for the manufacture 
of arms. What a Vulcan ^s Cave that was! It seemed an 
under-world, where the fires were ever burning, and the 
hammers rang with a ceaseless clang. Much more pleasant 
was it now to see workmen, not forging weapons of war, 
but moulding bars of iron, which were to be turned into 
plowshares and pruning-hooks, or into the rails over which 
are to roll the wheels of civilization. 

The owners of these iron-works have given the place the 
rather ambitious name of >South Pittsburg, although in 
time it may prove itself a not unworthy child of such a 
mother. In the development of new industries at the 
South, nothing is more worthy of notice than the increased 
production of coal and iron. For years the Great Valley 
was supplied with coal from Pittsburg, which was floated 



BATTLE-FIELD OF MURFKEESBORO. 45 

clown the Ohio and Mississippi. Much still comes that 
way. But the mountains of Tennessee are full of mines of 
coal, which need only to be developed to be a source of very 
great wealth. Indeed in one particular Pittsburg itself is 
very much surpassed by South Pittsburg, viz. : in the close 
proximity of coal and iron. These works are at the outlet 
of a little valley, on one side of which are tliick strata of 
coal, and on the other rich beds of iron ore; so that it is an 
easy matter to bring them down to the same point, where 
the coal, converted into coke, can be used to melt the ore 
which is converted into iron bars. And South Pittsburg 
has equal advantages with its namesake on the Ohio, in 
that it is on the banks of the Tennessee, whose broad cur- 
rent will float the j^roducts of its mines and its furnaces to 
f\'ery joortion of the Great Valley. 

But in Tennessee, (which was " the dark and bloody 
ground '' of the war almost as much as Virginia, as in it 
♦vere fought four of the greatest battles — Shiloh and Mur- 
freesboro, Chickamauga and Chattanooga) we are constant- 
ly passing from one thing to another — from war to jDcace, 
and from peace to war. As we left the flaming furnaces of 
South Pittsburg, we turned westward, coming out of the 
hills into the more open country of Middle Tennessee, and 
in the afternoon j)assed over the field of Murfreesboro (or 
Stone River, as the battle is sometimes called, from having 
been fought on its banks), where it raged for two days, and 
was both lost and won. It was begun on the last day of 
the year 1862. That day the battle went against us, though 
the result was not decisive. The next day the armies rested, 
as if not willing to stain the new-born year with scenes of 
blood; but on the 2d of January, 1863, the battle was re- 
sumed, and was fiercer and deadlier than before. At one 
moment the day seemed to be lost: the Union forces were 
driven back by the furious charge of the Confederates; 
when suddenly the tide was turned by the masterly move- 



46 THIRTY THOUSAND GRAVES. 

ment of Eosecrans in concentrating his artillery at one 
point, whicli swept the field, and covered it with the dying 
and the dead. Seldom have more horrors been piled upon 
a battle-plain. One shudders to think of the agonies of 
that field when the darkness fell upon it, and the rain be- 
gan to pour, as if the skies were as pitiless and cruel as 
man could be to man. All that Winter night the wounded 
of both armies were exposed to the fury of the elements, 
their mingled groans ascending to heaven. The very mem- 
ory of those days seems to hover as a black cloud over the 
peaceful landscape; but the anguish of the dying was long 
since stilled, and here they sleep the sleep of " the unre- 
turning brave. ^"^ The National Cemetery is said to contain 
thirty thousand graves (!), though I can hardly believe that 
the number is so great, as there are less than seventeen 
thousand at Vicksburg. But we need not be exact in the 
matter: the total is fearful enough in either case. A glance 
of the eye as we swept past showed that the grounds are ex- 
tensive, many acres being dotted with low headstones, each 
of which marks "a soldier's sepulchre.^' If those who 
sleep here were to rise from their graves, as in the vision of 
the Apocalypse, they would '' stand up uj)on the earth an 
exceeding great army.'' God grant that our country may 
never behold such scenes again! 

It was dark when we reached Nashville; but, as usual, 
friends were waiting for us with carriages, and we were 
soon enjoying the light and warmth of a most comfortable 
Hotel. 



IV. 

THE CITY OF NASHVILLE — GOVERN'OR BATE AN"D EX-GOV- 
EEN^OR MARKS — VANDERBILT AND FISK UNIVERSITIES 
— MRS. PRESIDENT POLK — ^VISIT TO BELLE MEADE — 
FIRST AND LAST IMPRESSIONS. 

As I am an old traveller, I often amuse myself in com- 
paring my opinion of a place when I enter it with that 
when I leave it: there is sometimes a wide contrast between 
the first impression and the last. Thus my first glimpse 
of Nashville was not attractive. We arrived just at even- 
ing, when it was no longer daylight; and yet it was not 
dark enough for the lamps to be lighted, which give an 
artificial brightness to city streets. A mist had come up 
f I'om the river as dense as a London fog, and as we rode to 
our hotel, we could see neither to the right nor left. The 
air was damp and chilly, and the outlook dreary enough; 
and if we had passed through the city without stopping 
(like some English travellers, who still feel competent to 
give their impressions of the country), we should have said 
that it was a forlorn and wretched place. 

But we halted on our journey, and spent about thirty 
hours in Nashville; and in that time we " walked about 
Zion,^' and fomid it surrounded by a country of great nat- 
ural beauty: we stood on the marble steps of the Capitol, 
and took in the proportions of a very considerable city; we 
visited two Universities, so that we found it was not desti- 
tute of institutions of learning; and lastly, were entertained 
with such generous hosi^itality, that we came to the conclu- 
sion that it had a distinguished society. That my readers 
may share in the pleasures of that happy day, I must take 



48 EX-GOVERNOR MARKS. 

them with us in our rides as in our receptions, that they 
may appreciate tlie jDleasant memories that linger on the 
banks of the Cumberland. 

Hardly had we entered the Maxwell House before we were 
informed that some of the good people of the place had had 
the kind thought to give us a dinner that very evening; and 
as soon as we could go to our rooms, and make a hurried 
preparation, we were ushered into a large parlor, to find 
the Governor of Tennessee waiting to receive us, with 
a number of gentlemen who are generally designated by the 
reporters as " prominent citizens, ^^ and soon filed into a 
dining-room, where the pleasant company was seated round 
a long table, with Governor Bate at one end and ex-Gover- 
nor Marks at the other. It was my good fortune to have a 
seat by the latter — a gentleman of great intelligence, who 
had been identified with the history of the State in jieace 
and war. He gave me gratifying information of the con- 
dition of the South, which showed that its recovery, though 
slow, was steady, and promised a long career of prosperity. 

But I was still more interested in some personal reminis- 
cences, to whi(;h (as he referred to them in a speech in the 
course of the evening) it may not be overstepping the lim- 
its of modesty for me to allude. 

At the close of the war, the North and the South were 
both in a state of great irritation. Though their hostility 
could no longer vent itself in oj^en combat, it was j^ent up 
in millions of hearts that were full of bitterness. The 
North had suffered terribly in her homes; her sons were ly- 
ing on a hundred battle-fields, and she was hi no mood for 
leniency toward those who had brought upon the land such 
immeasurable woes. Some, forgetting the wise saying of 
Burke, that " you can not frame an indictment of treason 
against a whole people,'^ would have had the Confederate 
leaders tried by court-martial, with the full penalty of trea- 
son. Some were enraged that General Lee was allowed to 



THE IRON-CLAD OATHS. 49 

escape punishment. It is even said that Secretary Stanton 
once issued an order for his arrest, that he might be brought 
before a military tribunal. It is one of the thousand things 
we owe to General Grant that by his firmness he saved the 
country from a great infamy. General Lee had surrendered 
on the field of battle^, and was entitled to the protection 
given to a prisoner of war; and General Grant felt that his 
own personal honor as a soldier, as well as the honor of the 
country, were involved in keeping faith with him. We can 
now see the wisdom as well as the justice of such modera- 
tion. General Lee, the leader of the Confederate armies, 
became the great pacificator of the South. Eetiring to his 
home in Lexington, and remaining there in quiet dignity, 
he gave an exami3le of moderation and self-restraint which 
did more than any other man's could have done for the 
restoration of good feehng between the North and South. 
Had the Government touched a hair of his head, it would 
have left in the Southern heart a hatred that would have 
been perpetuated from generation to generation. 

Thus the fury of passion was baffled in one way, but only 
to show itself in another. Failing to establish military 
tribunals, it resorted to a vindictive legislation, which we 
can hardly believe to have been in existence in our day. 
Congress passed a test-oath aimed es]3ecially at lawyers, 
who were supposed to have taken a very active part in 
stirring up the Eebellion. By this all attorneys and coun- 
sellors-at-law were required, before they could resume the 
practice of their profession, to swear that they had had 
nothing to do with the Rebellion. The effect of this can 
be imagined in a community where almost every able-bodied 
man had been in the ranks of the army. It outlawed hun- 
dreds and thousands of the most capable men in the South- 
ern States. Governor Marks told me how it bore upon his 
own case. He said: *'I came out of the war ruined. I 
had a wife and child. What could I do for their support? 



50 THEY AIIE DECLARED VOID. 

I had not the trade of a mechanic; I could not be a car- 
penter or a blacksmith; I could not even be a laborer '' (he 
had lost a leg on the battle-field); "I could only practice 
my profession — that of the law — and that I was forbidden to 
do. That test-oath was a decree of starvation — a sentence 
of death/' 

Yet such was the temper of the people that this mon- 
strous legislation was not only enacted by Congress, but to 
a large extent approved and sustained by public opinion at 
the North. And I remember well when a certain Judge 
(whose name was brought up in this conversation), who 
had been appointed by Lincoln, was said to have ''gone 
back " on the Union sentiment of the North, because he 
differed from some of his colleagues in his conviction that, 
since the war was over, it was time that martial law should 
cease, and that confiscation and outlawry should come to 
an end. Yet there was the law, in the statutes of the 
United States, to be rigidly enforced until it could in some 
legitimate way be annulled. Congress would not repeal it. 
There remained but one hope of relief — in the Supreme 
Court of the United States, which might declare the law 
unconstitutional; and on that august tribunal nearly one- 
half the Judges were in favor of sustaining these test-oaths. 
They were condemned only by a majority of one, and I was 
proud to think that one of my name and kindred took an 
active part in that decision, and wrote the opinion of the 
Court. It never came home to me before as it did now, 
when I had before me an illustration of its effect. . '' That 
decision, '^ said Governor Marks, " set me free; my limbs 
were unbound. From that moment I could enter the 
courts and practice my profession. '^ And he did practice 
it so well that he rose not only to the front rank at the bar, 
but to such public respect and importance that he was 
elected Governor of the State. His face flushed as he spoke 
of the bitter time when he was left with nothing under 



A HISTORIC HOUSE. 51 

heaven but his wife and child, and was prohibited even 
from using his voice or his brain for their support; and his 
heart warmed toward me in grateful remembrance of an 
act of justice once performed by my brother. 

As he spoke thus of one who was very dear to me, I told 
him that the Judge lived in a house which had a historic 
interest. "When Washington was taken by the British 
troops in 1814, and the Capitol was burned, there was an 
immediate pressure for the removal of the seat of govern- 
ment to some other city. To jjrevent this, the leading citizens 
of Washington purchased a lot and erected upon it (at a 
cost of $30,000) a building for the temporary accommoda- 
tion of Congress. It was comj^leted December 4th, 1815, 
and immediately leased at an annual rent of 11650, and 
here the legislative sessions were held until the Capitol was 
rebuilt and ready for occupation. Here Henry Clay pre- 
sided as Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. In 
front of the building James Monroe was inaugurated Pres- 
ident with great brilliancy March 4, 1817. When the 
Capitol was so far rebuilt that the two Houses could occupy 
their chambers in it their late quarters were turned into a 
fashionable boarding-house, which was the home of many 
Senators and Representatives when they were in Washing- 
ton, including Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, and 
here the latter breathed his last. 

Later still, it went through another transformation. 
When the late war came on, as it was Government ^^rop- 
erty, it might have been turned into s(?ldiers' barracks — a 
convenient place for a guard of the public buildings. In- 
stead of that it was put to another use — in being con- 
verted into a Military Prison. This was the Old Cap- 
itol Prison, of which we heard so much during the 
war, as the place in which so many Southern ofiBcers 
were confined. After the war, being no longer needed for 
any kind of military occupation, it was sold by Cono^ress, 



52 GOVERI^OR BATE. 

and purchased by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, who 
put a mansard roof upon it, and converted it into three 
beautiful private residences, one of which is owned by Mr. 
Evarts, one by General Dunn, and the other (which is at 
the end of the row, and has a large extension for a 
library, with oj^en grounds) by Judge Field, who, as he 
is given to hospitality, often welcomes to it his Southern 
friends, some of whom, as they enter his charming home, 
look round with a quiet smile, and tell him that they have 
on a former occasion had the honor of a residence within 
those walls, but in circumstances not quite so agreeable as 
those in which they now find themselves! 

While we were enjoying this quiet conversation. Governor 
Bate, who had the rest of our party around him at the 
other end of the table, was keeping them in a roar with his 
stories. He,- too, had been in the war, and was one of Gen- 
eral Hood's division commanders in the battle of FrankHn, 
and the longer conflict around the city of Nashville. He 
is a man of fine presence, and carries himself with a mili- 
tary air, standing erect like a grenadier. Not the least of 
his military qualities is a certain gayety of manner, which 
belongs to the dashing soldier. He has a very pleasing 
address, and when he rose to speak, he and his friend. Col. 
Colyar, of " The Nashville Union,^' by their interchange of 
wit, kejDt us all in a merry mood; while Governor Marks, 
if he spoke in a somewhat graver tone, added not less to 
the general satisfaction by iiis words, which were so cordial, 
and so manly and patriotic. 

The next morning I was " abroad," as usual, at an early 
hour, arm in arm with Col. Colyar, who kindly took me 
through the principal streets, which show that Nashville is 
a place of importance commercially as well as politically, 
as a center of business for the Middle South, as well as the 
capital of the great State of Tennessee. Among other 
large buildings, I espied the Publishing House of the Cum- 



LITTLE TRACE OF THE BATTLE. 53 

berland Presbjrterian Church, and immediately entered to 
introduce myself, and take the hands of the excellent 
brethren, who are our spiritual kindred, and whom we 
hope some day to welcome into a closer fellowship of the 
saints in an organic union of all who hold substantially the 
same faith, in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Pres- 
byterian Church of the United States of America. 

Returning to the hotel we found carriages waiting to 
take us to Vanderbilt University, which is a mile or so 
from the city. The country around Nashville is rolling, 
offering in its numerous elevations many beautiful sites for 
public buildings. As soon as we were out of town I kept 
a sharp lookout for some memorial of the great battle 
which had once raged over these hills; but almost every 
trace of it had disappeared. Here and there might be seen 
a low earthwork which had once been grim with the 
mouths of cannon frowning over it^ but now not a gun was 
to be seen anywhere. The very works themselves had been 
almost washed away by rains, leaving only a few grassy 
mounds over which children may play in these happy times 
of peace. 

We soon rode into a large inclosure that swells upward to 
a considerable elevation, and is crested with the stately 
buildings of Vanderbilt University. The campus is of 
many acres in extent, which are set out with trees. The 
good Methodist Bishop, who is President of the Institution, 
has a passion for trees, and has collected within the grounds 
a very great number and variety of those which are native 
to this part of the country. When these have attained 
their growth, here will be one of the grandest collections of 
American trees on the continent, showing the richness and 
variety of the Southern forests. The President, whose 
portly form we had recognized coming across the lawn, 
now met us, and we wept up the steps together. As we 
stood at the top of the long flight, and looked around, it 



54 VANDERBILT Ul^IVERSITY. 

seemed as if a more beautiful site could not have been 
chosen. The view extends over the country for miles. 
Though in full view of the city, this hill-top is far enough 
away not to be disturbed by any sound from its streets; it 
has that quiet and stillness which are needed in an institu- 
tion of learning. In the chapel, where the students meet 
for morning and evening 23rayers^ is a full-length portrait 
of Commodore Vanderbilt, who gave a million of dollars to 
found the University; and a smaller one of his wife, whose 
sweet face appears here with the utmost pro23riety, as it is 
commonly believed that the generous gift of her husband 
was due to her gentle inspiration. There is also a portrait 
of the late William H. Vanderbilt, who added a quarter of 
a million to the endowment. Such an institution (if it be 
recognized by the family as the monument of their father 
and grandfather, for which the sons and grandsons are to 
care) will never want for money. But something more 
than money is needed to make a great University; and of 
this intellectual provision we find proofs in the library, and 
recitation-rooms and laboratories, and in the faces of the 
Professors, to whom we were introduced. This excellent 
corps of teachers, furnished with these noble halls and 
every facility for academic training, give promise that 
Vanderbilt University, though as yet in its youth, will live 
for generations, and be immensely useful in the long career 
to which it is destined. 

lieturning to the front, as our eyes swept round the cir- 
cuit of the hills, we descried in another dn-ection Fisk Uni- 
versity; and though it required us to make a considerable 
detour, we could not go away without visiting an institution 
of which v/e had heard so much. Major Baxter was in the 
carriage with me, and as we rode along j)ointed to a gloomy 
building where he had been a prisoner for a short time 
during the war, unable to communicate with his family 
who were so near! But we dismiss these memories as we 



FISK UNIVERSITY. 55 

ride up to Fisk University, which, like Vanderbilt, stands 
on a hill overlooking the city. This was one of the first 
institutions for the colored people estabhshed after the war, 
and took its name from Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, who had 
always been a friend of the negro as he has been of the 
Indian, and whose large and kindly face looks upon us 
from the walls. Here President Cravath received us very 
warmly, and, after showing us through the building, took 
us to Jubilee Hall, so called because erected with money 
earned by the Jubilee Singers, who have sung their plaint- 
ive melodies in the cities of this country and in Europe, 
where they have been listened to with interest by audiences 
of the highest rank, not only in Great Britain, but on the 
Continent; even those who could not understand their 
language recognizing in the pathos of their songs the echo 
of a mournful history. It was a beautiful thought to use 
their marvellous gift of music for the benefit of the in- 
stitution to which they owed so much, by which they gave 
delight to tens of thousands of hearers in two continents, 
and at the same time rendered a lasting service to their 
race. 

Both these buildings are large, and the rooms for study 
and recitation as spacious as in a New England College. 
In the library was a j)ure African, the son of a chief, who 
hopes, when he completes his education, to return to his 
native country. Who can tell what a future may be his? 
He may be a messenger of Christianity and of civilization 
to his countrymen on the coast, and in the forests and 
along the rivers of Africa! President Cravath wished us 
to wait till he could assemble the students for some public 
exercises. But as we had another engagement, our time 
was very brief; yet brief as it was, it gave us some impres- 
sions which we shall long retain. It was very cheering to 
get even a glimpse of so many bright, intelligent counte- 
nances; to see how freedom has brought a new light into 



56 MRS. PEESIDENT POLK. 

those dark African faces, as it has brought sunshine into 
their lives. Long may they live to sing, not the songs of 
bondage, but of deliverance! 

Our visit was hastened by an ai^pointment which we had 
to pay our respects to the wife of President Polk, who is 
still living in the home to which they came on his retire- 
ment from the Presidency thirty-seven years since, and 
where he died, and in front of which he is buried. Enter- 
ing the drawing-room, we found standing to receive us one 
who seemed the very ideal of " a lady of the old school," 
with manners a little stately, but extremely gracious — the 
combination best befitting one of the exalted station that 
she occupied forty years ago, which then captivated all who 
saw her in the midst of the throng in the White House, and 
which still lend a charm to her advancing years. 

Major Thomas welcomed us in her name, and after we 
had been presented, one of our party, who was asked to re- 
ply, referred first of all to her illustrious husband, whose 
name has such a place in an important period of American 
history, as the four years of his administration included the 
war with Mexico and the acquisition of California, and from 
it dates the existence of our Pacific Empire. He then ex- 
pressed for himself and his associates the great pleasure 
they all felt in being permitted to pay their respects to one 
who united in herself two generations, and their wishes for 
her continued happiness, in which he was sure he but re- 
flected the wishes of the whole American people. 

One more visit of state — to the Governor in the Capitol; 
and then we betook ourselves to the home of Major Baxter, 
where we were entertained with true Southern hospitality. 
Three o'clock found us again at the station, where a special 
train was waiting to take us a few miles into the country, 
to one of the most famous stock farms in the South — Belle 
Meade, the home of General Jackson, a brother of the 
United States Senator. The j^ark is extensive and beauti- 



BELLE MEADE. 57 

ful, with deer feeding under tlie ancient trees. Here are 
bred the most famous race-horses in the country. The 
General would think it almost a degradation if one of his 
horses were harnessed to a carriage. We were shown a 
great number of colts, graceful as fawns, which are expect- 
ed to bring large prices at the annual sale in April. Though 
I could not appreciate the peculiar fineness of limb and 
shoulder which made them of such value, it needed but a 
common eye to perceive their exceeding grace and beauty. 

Then wq were taken to see the kings of the turf, that 
had won innumerable victories on . the most famous courses 
in this comitry and in England — horses that had a pedigree 
reaching back, it seemed to me, to the jjair that came out 
of the Ark. As the General indicated with enthusiasm 
their special *' points," which made them sujDcrior to all 
other horses in the world, I tried to look wise, and nodded 
my head approvingly, though in my heart I was obliged to 
confess that he could not have found a person more igno- 
rant on the subject in the State of Tennessee. I tell my 
friend, Mr. Robert Bonner, that I have a horse up in the 
country for which I j)aid a hundred and seventy-five dol- 
lars, which I would not exchange for Maud S., for which 
he paid forty thousand! " My faithful creature keej^s an 
even pace, is straightforward and steadj^-going — ' a regular 
Presbyterian ' — not to be confounded with your jumpers 
and flyers, that go over the ground like a flash of light- 
ning '' — at which he laughs heartily at my simplicity. 

The hospitalities of the day ended with a dinner in the 
evening at a private house, which brought together a num- 
ber of gentlemen, who formed a most agreeable company; 
and when at eleven o'clock we returned to our hotel, we all 
felt that we had seldom had the good fortune to find our- 
selves in a more delightful city than Nashville, so widely 
did our last impression differ from the first. 

At midnight we were on our way to Alabama. 



V. 

DOWl^ IK ALABAMA — THE BATTLE OF FKANKLIN — BIRMING- 
HAM — " PEACE, PIG-IRON, AND PROSPERITY ^^ — MONT- 
GOMERY, THE CRADLE OF THE CONFEDERACY — GOVER- 
NOR O^NEAL. 

Every morning we w^ke up in a new State. One day 
it is Georgia; tlien it is Tennessee; and now it is Alabama. 
If any of my readers should take the map to follow us, he 
would see that we took a zig-zag course : first bearing South 
by West to Atlanta; then North by West to Chattanooga 
and Nashville; and now South again to Birmingham and 
Montgomery. These crooks and turns are merely eccen- 
tricities of genius — little diversions from the regular routes, 
which are nothing to those who have all power to go 
whither and how they will. With a special train at our 
command, we care little about latitude and longitude: dis- 
tances are nothing. We can make an appointment to 
breakfast a hundred miles away, as easily as in the country 
I could walk across the lawn to breakfast with my nearest 
neighbor. 

But except as a matter of convenience, to reach certain 
points at a designated hour, I could wish that we were not 
whirled about quite so fast, and that we made our journeys 
in broad daylight, instead of 

" Folding our tents like the Arabs, 
And silently stealing away " 

in the darkness of the night; for here, as in coming from 
Atlanta to Chattanooga, we are on historic ground. Only 
eighteen miles south of Nashville, we pass through Frank- 

(58) 



hood's INVASION" OF TENNESSEE. 59 

lin, which recalls one of the mosfc desperate battles of the 
war. It is an old story, but an old story becomes new when 
you hear it, as 1 did, from the lips of one who was in the 
scene, and tells his own personal experiences. How the 
battle came to be fought at all, is one of the remarkable 
incidents of a war abounding in surprises. A word will ex- 
plain the military situation. 

The fall of Atlanta, SejDt. 2, 1864, left Sherman in pos- 
session of that strategic point, but at a long distance from 
his base. He had to dejDcnd on the North for suppHes, the 
greater part of which came through Louisville, five hun- 
dred miles away, every mile of which had to be guarded. 
This long line was his weak point, the one most exposed to 
attack. Unable to drive back the invader by direct assault. 
Hood determined to get in his rear, and cut his communi- 
cations. Since Sherman had invaded Georgia, he would 
invade Tennessee. This was one of the critical moments 
in war, which it is the part of military genius to seize and 
turn to advantage. Seeing his purpose, Sherman, instead 
of opposing it, permitted him to carry it out; indeed he 
helped him in it by tearing up the rails for miles in the 
rear of his army, to cut off pursuit as he struck through 
Georgia. At the same time he sent Thomas to Nashville 
to hold that vital j^oint, and despatched two corj^s under 
Schofield to support him, while he undertook his great 
march to the sea. Thus Hood was left between two armies, 
not closing in upon him, but moving in opposite directions, 
and, with an infatuation which it is difficult to understand, 
instead of following Sherman, and harassing his march, he 
took the directly opposite course — a movement of which 
General Grant says that ''it seemed to be leading to his 
certain doom. At all events, had I the power to command 
both armies, I should not have changed the orders under 
which he seemed to be acting. '^ But Hood could not resist 
the temptation to pursue Schofield (who had but seventeen 



60 THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIK. 

tlioiisand men, while he had over forty thousand), whom 
he hoped to overtake and destroy before he could reach 
Nashville. It was a race between them. Schofield had 
passed through Columbia in raj)id march, the enemy in hot 
pm'suit. The next point which he was aiming to reach was 
the village of Franklin, which lies in the bend of a little 
river that sweeps round it. If he could but get his artillery 
and baggage-trains safely across that river, it would afford 
him a line of defence which he could hold till he could con- 
tinue the march in safety. Accordingly he had sent for- 
ward a pressing message to have pontoons at that jDoint to 
construct a bridge, that he might pass over without delay. 
What was his consternation at arriving to find that not a 
single pontoon had been provided! Nothing remained but 
to throw up hasty earthworks across the bend of the river, 
and drawing his little army within it, to make his stand 
there, to live or to die. The Confederates came on in force, 
and attacked with the utmost fury. Braver men never 
marched to battle. The events of war, as of peace, some- 
times depend on very slight causes. It is said that the day 
before. Hood had reproached his generals for allowing the 
Federal army to escape at Spring Hill. Such reproaches 
stung the proud spirit of brave men, and they went into 
battle with a bitter feeling, determined to leave no chance 
for reproaches hereafter. In this mood Cleburne, who 
made that gallant charge at Chickamauga, led his division 
into the fire, and was actually spurring his horse over the 
breastworks, when horse and rider fell under a shower of 
balls. His death recalls an incident of which Sam Jones 
makes very effective use. It is said that the Confederate line, 
as it advanced, was enfiladed by a battery planted in a grove 
of the black locust-trees so common in that region. Seeing 
his men cut to pieces, General Hood, who was sitting 
on his horse in the rear, watching the battle, sent one 
of his aids with the following order: " Give my compU- 



"GENERAL CLEBURNE IS DEAD, SIR! " 61 

ments to General Cleburne;, and tell liim that I ask at his 
hands the battery in the Locust Grove !^^ The aid disap- 
peared, and qmckly returned with the message: " General 
Cleburne is dead, sir/^ Again the commander spoke: 
" Give my compliments to General Adams, and tell him 
that I ask at his hands the battery in the Locust Grove!" 
Again the message is returned: " General Adams is dead, 
sir/' Once more went the unflinching order to a third 
commander with the same result. The moral is evident. 
The thrice repeated command is meant to illustrate the 
duty of unquestioning obedience, and, as might be supposed, 
is used with startling effect on a Confederate audience, 
though the fiery preacher afterward introduced it in one of his 
great meetings in Chicago, when, after winding uj) his 
hearers to the highest pitch, he gave the word of command 
somewhat after this fashion: " As adjutant of the Lord of 
Hosts, I ask at your hands the city of Chicago; that you 
compel it to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ !'' — an 
undertaking more difficult than to storm any battery that 
ever hurled death into the face of a foe. 

It is a pity to mar a tale that has been worked up with 
such thrilling effect. But it is denied by some, who look 
upon it as one of those legends of battle in which a slight 
incident is magnified by the imagination. Others, how- 
ever, affirm it to be literally true. Certainly it could have 
been, for nothing was more perfectly in keejoing with the 
heroic courage shown on that awful day. 

The carnage was fearful. In those five hours (the battle 
began at four o'clock in the afternoon, and continued till 
nine, and at that season — it was the last day of November, 
when the sun sets before five o'clock — it was chiefly after 
night-fall, so that both sides could see to fire only by the 
flashing of each other's guns) the Confederates lost six thou- 
sand men! The number of officers killed was such as was 
seldom known in the war. Mr. Cunningham of ^' The 



62 PERSONAL REMINIvSCEISrCE OF THE BATTLE. 

Nashville American '' tells me that, though he was little 
more than a boy, he was in the ranks, and in the very 
front. The first charge of the Confederates had broken 
our line in the center, and though they were soon driven 
back, they still held a portion of the breastworks; wliile our 
troops formed another line behind it. The two were but 
twenty-five yards apart, and at this close range poured a 
murderous fire into each other. My informant says that 
when he came to the ditch, it was filled with the dying and 
the dead, so that he liad to clwib over tliem to get up to the 
breastworks. Those standing in the ditch loaded the rifles, 
and j)assed them up to those in front, who thus kept up a 
constant firing; but expected every moment, as the assault 
seemed hopeless, to receive an order from General Stahl, 
who was standing just behind them, to retreat; but the 
grim soldier, with German stubbornness, answered only, 
" Keep firing!'^ when he too was riddled with bullets. As 
they carried him off dying, he called for his Colonel to turn 
over the command to him, who continued the desperate 
battle till he too was shot down; and (as Governor Cox of 
Ohio, who was in the battle, and has written the history of 
the campaign, tells the story) he was so walled in by the 
slain that he could wot fall, and there was seen in the gray 
of the morning still erect, as if giving the word of com- 
mand to that " bivouac of the dead!'' During all this rage 
of battle, this boy-soldier, whose comrades were falling 
every instant beside him, expected that the next minute 
would be his last. How he escaped, he can not tell. To 
this day a horror comes over him as he recalls that awful 
scene; and how he was saved 

" Out of the jaws of death, 
Out of tlie mouth of hell," 

is one of the mysteries of his life. 



KORTHERl^ ALABAMA — BIRMIl^GHAM. 63 

But enough of war. We can not stand much of this at 
a time; and so^ when we have giVen our readers a short 
chaiDter, we change the subject, if it were only for the effect 
of contrast. After brooding over the horrors of a battle- 
field, it is a relief to get into the solemn stillness of the 
woods, among " the murmuring pines and the hemlocks. ^^ 
Nature is the great restorer of body and mind. The tree- 
tops that wave gently over our heads, and the soft winds 
that stir in the jmies, whisper " Peace. ^^ Northern Ala- 
bama has great forests, dark with shadows wliich tempt the 
imagination, and full of coverts, where the deer feed un- 
scared by the rifle of the hunter. And now, as the morn- 
ing advances, we find ourselves in a region where a geolo- 
gist would discover, in the rocks which crop out of the 
mountain sides, the evidences of vast mineral dejDosits. Ala- 
bama is in the South what Pennsylvania is in the North 
— a State whose treasures are in the bowels of the earth, in 
which she has enough buried to make the wealth of half a 
dozen States. As in Eastern Tennessee, the seams of coal 
lie in close proximity to the beds of iron ore. Here and 
there we came upon a mining camp in the woods, and stop- 
ping the train, climbed up to the mouth of a shaft Avhich 
had been bored into the side of a mountain. The ore-beds 
are of enormous extent, eight or ten feet thick, lying al- 
most on a level, or at a gentle incline, so as to be easy for 
mining. In one ridge along which we passed, the iron ore 
is said to extend forty miles! 

After a rapid survey of these treasures of the hills, we 
ran down to Birmingham, of which we had heard so much 
— a city which has sprung up in a night, but which has 
great possibilities. Here, as usual, friends were waiting 
for us with carriages to take us round the town, which is 
laid out on a grand scale. The " pattern '' is large. 
Whether it will ever be " filled up ^^ is another question. 
But it has made a good beginning, the long and wide streets 



64 "PEACE, PIG-IROJSr, AND PROSPERITY ! ^^ 

showing already blocks of fine buildings. The first fruit of 
this is a fever of sjDeculation. A land company owns a 
large i^ortion of the town, and lots are selling at prices 
which seem very high for a place in the woods; but as our 
Western cities have grown out of just such beginnings, 
Birmingham may go forward at the same rapid pace. 

Naturally the residents of a town of so much promise, 
are happy to receive distinguished visitors. Not long since 
Mr. Eandall paid them a visit, and recognizing him as the 
great protector of the iron industry, they wished to do him 
honor, and got out a military company with a cannon, and 
fired a salute. Of course he found tjiem ready converts to 
the Pennsylvania doctrine of protection, since they had the 
same article to be protected. Indeed they expressed what 
they thought necessary to the welfare of the country 
by a banner mounted on 'the tallest smoke-stack in the 
town, on which were blazoned in huge letters the words 
" Peace, Pig-irok, and Prosperity!'' 

Without indulging in any extravagance of dreamers or of 
speculators, it does seem to me quite within bounds to an- 
ticipate for this new " Tadmor in the Wilderness " a very 
remarkable growth in wealth and population; that it may 
become, as the center of a vast region of coal and iron, one 
of the iROi^ cities of the United States, or indeed of the 
world, like Pittsburg in this country, or its namesake, Bir- 
mingham, or Sheffield, in England. 

We went off at a ringing gait, as if the iron horse had 
caught the breeze from the Gulf, and at three o'clock 
reached Montgomery. As we stepped out of the car, Mr. 
Inman was greeted by numerous friends (he seems to have 
friends everywhere), who took possession of us as their 
guests, and putting us in carriages, rode into the town. 
We had not gone far, however, before we reined up at the 
Exchange Hotel, and were ushered into a drawing-room, 
where the Governor of Alabanui was standing to receive us. 



MONTGOMERY, THE CAPITAL OF ALABAMA. C5 

He is a fine old, gentleman, of military ajopearance: for he 
too (like Governor Bate of Tennessee) was a General before 
lie was a Governor. The name of General O^Neal was fa- 
miliar to us during the war as one of the hard fighters of 
the South. He was one of Stonewall Jackson^s lieutenants, 
by whose side he fought through many a bloody day. But 
bronzed old soldier as he is, he was now the very picture of 
gentleness, and received us, not only politely, but with the 
utmost cordiality, responding warmly to the sentiment of 
" Liberty and Union forever!" 

After these greetings, he entered one of the carriages 
with us, and we drove to the Capitol. This is a historic 
building. Montgomery was the cradle of the Confederacy, 
and on the porch of the Capitol Jefferson Davis took the 
oath of office as its President. I stood on the very stone, 
and can truly say that I had it under my feet. The Gov- 
ernor took us into his office, where were held the meetings 
of the Confederate Cabinet until the government was re- 
moved to Richmond. How different now from that time 
of plottings and conspiracies! The sky was clear, and the 
sun shone brightly on the beautiful landscape; and an hour 
later, from this very terrace where we were standing, was 
heard the firing of minute-guns in honor of General Han- 
cock, as that gallant Union soldier was laid in his grave! 

As we rode away from the Caj^itol, I was seated in the 
carriage with the Governor, and so accustomed have we be- 
come to this sort of thing (this is the third Governor — or 
fourth, counting ex-Governor Marks — who has received us 
in three days) that some of us doubt whether it will do 
hereafter to associate with anybody of less rank than a Gov- 
ernor. Perhaps we may come down to a Mayor (the Mayor 
here has been very civil to us); but as for associations in- 
ferior to these, they must be accepted with a certain re- 
serve ! 

But whatever other courtesies you may receive, a dinner 

3 



66 A GRIZZLED OLD WARRIOR. 

is the be-all and tlie end-all of liospitality^ so that our rid- 
ing ended at the Club. As we were to leave at half-past 
eight for New Orleans, we sat down at six. We had a gen- 
erous host to 23reside in Colonel John C. Graham, a well- 
known citizen of Montgomery, who accompanied us to New 
Orleans and Memphis, and added much to the pleasure of 
our journey. At the other end of the table sat the Gov- 
ernor, and as I looked at this grizzled old warrior, I re- 
■called the scenes through which he had j^assed, especially 
that fearful day at Chancellorsville, when he rode through 
the fiercest storm of battle, and his soldiers expected every 
moment to see him fall. I am not a bit disturbed at meet- 
ing the " Confederate brigadiers, ^^ for I find them brave 
men, and however I dislike the cause for which they fought, 
I can not but appreciate their heroic courage. Recogniz- 
ing this, I could say in truth, in the few words that fell to 
me, that much as we might mourn the calamities of war, it 
had at least one good effect, viz : to inspire in the combat- 
ants a profound respect for each other. It was a favorite 
maxim of Napoleon that '' power is never ridiculous;' ' 
and war, as the most terrific exhibition of the energies of 
man, inspires a respect which is not always given to the 
highest genius or the purest virtue. When one receives a 
stunning blow in the forehead, he may hate him who gave 
it; but as he reels under it, and picks himself uj), he can 
not despise the hand that struck him squarely. He may 
feel the utmost bitterness toward his adversary, but he can 
not feel contempt. So with great bodies of men: war 
sometimes teaches them what they would never learn in 
times of peace. Our civil war has caused the North and 
the South to know each other better than ever before. The 
North has come to respect the South — its vast resources: its 
power of organization, of resistance to forces that seemed over- 
whelming; and, above all, its courage and indomitable will. 
And, on the other hand, the Southerners are quite as 



"THEY WOULDN^T PIGHT THAT WAY/' G7 

ready to admit that they mistook their adversaries: that 
they did not luidei-stand the North before. Those whom 
they thought craven and cowardly, and wholly given to 
money-making, they have met in the field, and the shock 
of battle has wrought a revolution in their sentiments. 
They do not object to telling a story against themselves, 
and it is a very good one that they tell here of Judge Eice, 
a well-known Alabamian, who was very loud in his talk be- 
fore the war, predicting that Yankees would run like sheep: 
" He could whip them with popguns!'^ When the war 
was over, some oue reminded him of his boastful projohecy 
that he " would whip the Yankees with jDop-guns," to 
which he replied with a wit that disarmed further criticism: 
" Yes, we coidcl have whipped them with jDopguns, but 
[with an oath] they wouldn't fight that way !'' 

Now this mutual respect, which the war has done moi-e 
than all preceding events in American history to inspire, is 
the basis of a union between the North and the South, such 
as could not have been in the old da3's, when each side was 
taunting the other. I do not say that resjiect begets love, 
but I do say that there can be no enduring attachment be- 
tween individuals or States without this solid basis of 
respect; and therefore I predict, as the result of the war, a 
Union closer and stronger than before. 

It did me good to see how the Confederate officers round 
the table responded to this sentiment, which they enij^ha- 
sized, not with words so much as with grasps of the hand, 
that meant more than words. I looked in the face of the 
Governor, and saw that if it were j^ossible that a man of his 
years should ever again ride forth to battle, it would be to 
fight for the flag and the country. He beckoned me to his 
side, and I sat down by him, and asked him about his old 
commander, Stonewall Jackson, who might have been one 
of Cromweirs Eoundheads — a man who fea^red God, and 
therefore knew no other fear. *' I was near him when he 



68 DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON". 

fell, " said the Governor. It was the greatest loss which 
could have come to the army, except that of Lee himself, 
and perhaps outweighed all that had been gained at Chan- 
cellorsville. An old Catholic priest of New Orleans, to 
whom was assigned the duty of preparing a memorial ad- 
dress, but expressed the feeling of many in saying: ^' When 
it was decreed in the counsels of the Almighty that the 
Confederacy should not succeed, it became 11 eoessary first to 
remove Stoneiocdl Jackson. ^' Nothing but a Divhie decree 
could recoiicile them to his loss. But for him, he died as 
a soldier woidd wish to die, in the moment of victory. His 
last words were, '^ Let us pass over the river, and rest 
under the trees. '^ Was this a vision in his dying eyes of 
some sheltered spot on a mossy bank, or under the trees be- 
fore his door? or was it a glimpse of the Far-off Country, 
where " the weary are at rest ^^? It was to the latter that 
he was to depart: for then the voice ceased, and the face 
took on the look of ^^erfect peace; the heart stood still, and 
his spirit indeed ^' passed over the river, and rested under 
the trees " in the Paradise of God. 

Here we had to rise from the table, as our train was 
waiting for us. The Governor shook us all warmly by the 
hand as he bade us good-bye, while our younger friends 
" accompanied us to the ship." 

As we took our places for New Orleans, I could not 
but recall an evening two years since when going over 
the same ground. Then I was among strangers, and as 
I sat silent in the twilight, I could not if I would avoid 
hearing a conversation between two gentlemen (one of 
whom sat beside me, and the other opposite) who had been 
officers in the war, and found a grim delight in recalling 
" moving accidents by flood and field. ^' The one who was 
the chief talker had been at one time a prisoner in the 
Union lines, and had made his escape, the recital of which 
stirred his blood even now after the lapse of twenty years. 



IIECOLLECTIONS OF THE WAK. 69 

As the result of his military experience, he had a decided 
preference as to the arm of the service in which he would 
choose to be. " If I were to go into the army again/^ he 
said, " I would try to obtain a commission in the artillery. 
An officer who has a battery of his own is much more inde- 
pendent than one of equal rank in the infantry, where he is 
quite overshadowed by his regimental or brigade command- 
er. But with a battery of six or eight guns, he has more 
opportunity to distinguish himself. When the war be- 
gan, ^^ he continued, "the Federals had greatly the ad- 
vantage in artillery. At the battle of Malvern Hill they 
massed their guns so that they swept away our troops every 
time we attempted to advance. Later in die war we 
learned how to reserve our fire, and to use it with effect. 
But while at the beginning they had the advantage of us in 
artillery, we had the advantage of them in cavalry. The 
Southerners were born on horseback (every man on a plan- 
tation had been brought up from a boy in the saddle). 
This made them so dashing and fearless. It was a gallant 
sight to see Jeb Stewart at the head of his bold riders. 
He was my ideal of a cavalry officer. So great was our 
superiority, that our men counted it hut fun to rej^el an 
attack of the Northern troopers. But before the war was 
over,'' the S23eaker frankly admitted, *' this was changed. 
The Federals became more used to the saddle; they were 
well mounted and well armed, a,nd I tell you/' he said with 
emphasis, " the last year or two when they attacked us, they 
gave us all ive luanted to do to take care of tlieyn." Like 
the brave soldier that he apjDcared to be, he was ready to 
concede the courage of his enemy. " Never was there a 
more gallant charge," he said, " than that they made at 
Fredericksburg. How firm and steady they moved up the 
hill ! I stood on the heights and watched it all. The Irish 
brigade under General Meagher had almost reached our 
lines, wlipn it broke under our terrible fire. " 



70 DOING JUSTICE TO THEIR ADVERSARIES. 

\ 

So tlie talk niu on in the gloaming. I found then, as I 
have found everywhere at the South, that those who served 
in the ranks of the Confederacy, while they do not retain a 
feeling of bitterness over their defeat, are yet loyal to the 
cause for which they fought, and feel a natural pride in re- 
calling deeds of daring. 

And what is more, they can do justice to their adversa- 
ries, and this softens the pain of defeat, when they recognize 
the fact that they have been overcome by a gallant foe. 
Their military pride remains untouched by the issue of the 
war, and the hatred of enemies gives place to a feeling of 
mutual res2:)ect. They have made the discovery, which tve 
too have made, that a man may have been 02:>posed to us 
in the field, and yet acted with a heart as honest, and a 
purpose (to him) as patriotic as ours; and when he has 
shown the courage of his convictions by fighting for them 
with the most heroic devotion, he has shown great quali- 
ties which we can not but admire. The recognition of this 
on both sides will do more than all else to bring us together. 



VL 

NEW ORLEANS — THE CITY AND THE PEOPLE — CREOLE POP- 
ULATION — FRENCH GAYETY — BUSINESS INTERESTS — 
THE EXPOSITION — THE CHURCHES — DR. PALMER. 

The next morning we awoke to find ourselves near the 
sea; sea-birds were hovering in the air; we sniiffed the 
breeze from the Gulf; and through the level and marshy- 
plain the trunks of trees were bearded with that long, float- 
ing moss, which gives such a weird and funereal aspect to 
the Southern forests; and soon we came in sight of a low- 
lying but vase expanse of roofs, which, with the forest of 
masts behind them, told us that we had reached the city 
which stands on the banks of the Great River, and is * ' nigh 
unto the entering in of the sea.^' 

The first sight of New Orleans is not attractive. The 
country around has the appearance of being submerged, 
and the city itself can hardly keep its head above water. It 
is actually below the level of the river, and the covering of 
earth is so thin that it is impossible to dig a cellar or even 
a grave. Even the dead have to be buried in brick '' ovens " 
above ground I 

But the mere flatness of a country, though it takes away 
one chief element of beauty — that derived from variety of 
surface — does not take away all beauty, for the barrenness 
of nature may be redeemed by the skill and taste of man. 
The coast of Holland is below the level of the sea, which is 
kept out by enormous dikes; but the country is made very 
picturesque, for the recovered bed of the ocean is made into 
fat meadows, with fat cattle grazing upon them; while the 
landscape is varied by canals and windmills and church 
spires, peering out from among the trees. 



72 NEW ORLEANS NOT A PICTURESQUE CITY. 

But New Orleans has scarcely anything which can be 
called picturesque. With only a flat, watery surface to 
stand upon, no wonder that it is spilled out and spread out 
in almost limitless extent. The city is laid out at right 
angles, and the streets are of interminable length, and 
some of them of a corresponding v/idth. Canal street, which 
divides the old or French j)art of the town from the newer 
or American part, is a good deal wider than the Bowery, 
the widest of our New York streets. An avenue so broad, 
running through the heart of a ^reat city, might be im2:>os- 
ing if it were lined with palaces like those of Kome, or built 
up like the Boulevards of Paris. But here there is not the 
slightest attempt at the grand in architecture, or even at 
uniformity. The Custom House is about the only building 
that can claim to be at all imposing, while the street is 
largely given up to shops, some of which are quite insig- 
nificant and unworthy of such a situation. If I had been 
content with the first imj^ression as I rode through it, I 
should have gone away with the oj)inion that New Orleans 
was only a second or third-rate American city! 

But cities, like men, sometimes improve ujoon acquaint- 
ance, and after being a few days in New Orleans, I confess 
to have contracted a fondness for the old city. 

First of all, it is unique among American cities. It has 
a character of its own: it is not like anything else. If it is 
not grand, it is quaint and curious, and old; and this is 
something in a country where so many of our towns are 
'' brand-new," huge piles of brick and boards, with the 
paint fresh upon them. For its unique character, it is 
sometimes spoken of in connection with Quebec, though the 
two cities are as unlike as can be; yet they agree in this: 
that neither is made after the regulation pattern. In walk- 
ing about the old town, which is occupied chiefly by the 
French, one might believe himself in one of the provinces 
of France — in a mediaeval city of Normandy or Brittany. 



FKEJSrCH GAIETY — THE MARDI GRAS. 73 

He would recognize the faces as French, even if he did not 
hear the French hmgiiage. Thus N"e\v Orleans revives im- 
pressions of the old world in a very delightful way. 

The French element has given a French gayety even to 
the American poj^ulation. Nowhere this side the ocean is 
the Carnival observed with so much S2:)irit. Especially on the 
last day, the Mardi Gras, the city runs riot with mirth and 
festivity. There is a King of the Carnival, who, assuming 
his royal title of rex, issues his sovereign decrees to " liis 
loyal subjects " for the projier observance of the fete, on 
the day that he enters *' his favorite city of pleasure and 
enjoyment !'' Two years since we chanced to arrive here 
at the time of this season of gayety. When we heard 
of it we would have postj^oned our visit, but it was too late, 
and we had to be spectators, for which, however, we were 
not sorry, as it was a curious exhibition of fun and folly, to 
be seen nowhere else on this continent. As our rooms 
opened on a balcony which looked out upon Canal street, 
we could see the j^i'ocessions as they passed. There were 
several series of tableaux, chiefly representing ancient or 
sacred history, which showed considerable artistic skill, and 
could only have been got up at great expense: it was said 
that they cost over a hundred thousand dollars. They showed 
best in the evening, when seen by the light of torches and 
of a general illumination of the streets. Some of our j)arty 
who had had opportunity to make the comj^arison, said 
they were much more effective than what they saw at the 
Carnival in Rome. 

But to sober, work-a-day people, amusement, if too j^ro- 
longed, becomes wearisome, and " cold-blooded Northern- 
ers " sometimes turn abruptly from the S23ectacle of the 
Mardi Gras to ask what New Orleans *^ does for a living?^' 
They are then taken to the Cotton Exchange, for at the 
South it is still true that cotton is king. Its cultivation is 
still the great Southern industry, of which the Exchange in 



74 COTTON-SEED OIL— OLEOMARGARINE. 

New Orleiins is the head-center, as here merchants and 
brokers meet to buy and sell, and bulletins are posted, giv- 
ing the price of cotton in all the leading markets of the 
world. To judge from the number of persons so engaged, 
the interest involved must be enormous. Not only is the 
product vast in amount, but it is made by modern processes 
to yield more than ever before. The cotton-seed, which a 
few years since was thrown away as worthless, is now made 
to yield an oil which is a valuable article of commerce. 
After being expressed from the seed, it j^asses through a 
process of refining, from which it reappears of a beautiful 
clearness and color. We were told that it was exported in 
great quantities to France and Italy, from which it is again 
im]3orted into this country as the finest olive oil! It is also 
used extensively here at home in the production of that 
manufactured butter which has of late invaded our mar- 
kets, to the consternation of farmers and dairymen. Some 
who know more about the matter than I do, tell me that 
this is a very harmless compound, the chief ingredient of 
which is lard. Now I know there is nothing in lard which 
is " common or unclean, ^^ ivlien used in the riglit j)lace. 
Did not our mothers use it to make the delicious, flakey 
crust of the mince-pies which graced our tables on Thanks- 
giving-day? But somehow it seems as if the very same 
article would not taste quite the same if made into butter. 
But I am told that I " can not tell the difference. ^ ^ In- 
deed a very dear friend of mine tells me that he *' can beat 
any cow in the world ;^^ that his butter is never rancid; and 
that he is always sure of having it of that fine flavor and 
that rich yellow color which are so much prized in the prod- 
ucts of the dairy. Still I reject all his arguments as temp- 
tations of the adversary, and protest that, rather than be 
thus deceived, I will have my little Jersey cows driven up 
to my door (as they do with the goats in France), and 
milked before my eyes, and will kee23 a watch on the churn- 



THE EXPOSITIOK. 75 

ing. In this way I trust I shall be able to spread my bread 
with good, honest, old-fashioned butter to the end of my 
days. 

Sjoeaking of Southern industries reminds us of the Expo- 
sition, which was so brilliant last year, and the ghost of 
which still survives, though its glory is departed. A friend 
drove me out to the grounds, which are several miles from 
the city. The buildings were still standing, and the Expo- 
sition still nominally open, though it was but the shadow of 
its former self, as the rich exhibits of foreign countries had 
been removed, and little remained except the natural and 
manufactured j)i'oducts of our own country, and these in 
diminished form; so that the vast range of buildings was 
^' a banquet-hall deserted. " Yet the ExjDOsition of last year 
was one of the most notable that this country has ever seen. 
It is said that it was not a financial success. That may be : 
and yet many things which are not successful as a mere 
s|)eculation, are greatly to the advantage of the public. 
And this certainly was an immense benefit to New Orleans 
and the South. The tens of thousands of visitors whom it 
brought here, added millions to the income of the Crescent 
City. Still greater was the gain to the Southern States in 
the display it made of their j^roducts, such as had never 
been seen before. Considering all this, I think they owe a 
debt of gratitude to the distinguished Editor, Major E. A. 
Burke, of " The Times-Democrat,^^ by whose energy this 
great result was acliieved. To him more than to any other 
man it is due that the world now understands how vast are 
the resources of the South, and the materials of its wealth 
and power. 

Erom the Exposition to the river is four miles, and as 
the road was in fine condition, and as my friend had a 
beautiful pair of horses, we went spinning over it, not ex- 
actly at a Presbyterian gait, but with a speed that made my 
blood tingle. Arrived at the Mississippi, we climbed the 



76 DIKES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

(likes made to protect the country from inundation, and 
found that since our former visit a second embankment had 
been added to keep the river iu bounds. It is a terrible 
destroyer, against which it is necessary to kee]^ watch 
night and day at the time of the annual floods. This sys- 
tem of levees extends along the Mississi2:»pi for hundreds 
of miles. It must cost a heavy sum to the city and the 
State to keep them in re2:>air, though nothing as yet to com- 
pare with the expenditure of Holland, where one third the 
revenues of the State is aj^plied to keep out the waves of the 
German Ocean. It has often been proposed that the 
'Svalling-in '^ of the Mississipj^i be undertaken by the 
Goveriiment as a national work, and very elaborate jjlans 
have been made by engineers, the cost of which, it is esti- 
mated, would be over thirty millions; but it would reclaim 
and keep for perjietual cultivation a body of land equal in 
extent (at least so I judge merely from the eye), as well as 
in richness, to the Valley of the Nile from Cairo to the 
First Cataract. 

After so much to fill the eye and the mind, it is pleasant 
to have one day intervene before we enter on more sight-see- 
ing. To no one is the day of rest more welcome than to 
the weary traveller. There is something in the very at- 
mosphere that is soothing and restful. The city has jnit on 
its " Sunday's best." All whom you meet walk slowly, 
and not with the hurried step of other days. Their blood 
seems to flow more quietly in their veins. The air, un- 
vexed by sounds of traffic, is still, and it seems as if the 
sun looked out with more cheering light and warmth from 
the unclouded sky. 

New Orleans has not the reputation of being a Sabbath- 
keeping city. That jDart of its 2^023 ulation which is French 
has the national preference for an Euro23ean Sunday rather 
than an American Sabbath. But still there is (if I may 
judge from my observation, which is of course very limited). 



SUNDAY IK NEW ORLEANS— DR. PALMER. 77 

even among the Creoles, a respect for the day such as I 
have not seen in France. To be sure, in the morning the 
markets are open, and there is the usual chaffering and 
jabbering; but an hour or two later the Creole dames, in 
their wliite caps, may be seen flocking to the numerous 
Catholic churches for mass. In the afternoon they ride 
out with their husbands and children to some public garden 
on the banks of the Mississippi, and in the evening the 
theatres are open. Thus the day is kept as a holiday rather 
than as a holy day. But at least it is not so much pro- 
faned by hard, grinding labor. I saw no house-building 
going on, as one sees in Paris. To this extent at least it is 
a day of physical rest. 

But if half the city is Catholic, there . is another portion 
which is stoutly Protestant, and as rigidly observant of the 
Lord^s-day as the people of New York or New England. 
In the morning I met Mr. Sankey in the breakfast-room at 
the St. Charles, which reminded me that Mr. Moody was 
now holding a series of meetings here, one of which I at- 
tended in the evening. 

But ajDart from the gatherings drawn by such special 
services, there is in New Orleans a Christian community, 
comjDosed of churches of different denominations, which is 
a powerful element in the city. The pastor of the Presby- 
terian church in Lafayette Square, Dr. B. M. Palmer, is 
perhaps the man of most power and influence to be found 
in any denomination in the South. It was a great pleasure 
to listen to such a prince of preachers, whose ideas are not 
chaotic, like those of many of the brilliant '' pulj)it ora- 
tors ^' of the day, but who has in his mind a clear, well- 
defined system of truth, which he firmly believes. His 
mind is logical; it moves, not in an eccentric orbit, but in 
a straight line, advancing froin one position to another. It 
is an intellectual study to observe his way of opening a sub- 
ject: how he accumulates proof upon proof, and argument 



78 MOODY AND SANKEY. 

upon argument, marslialling them one after the other with 
a military precision. Thus he moves upon the enemy^s 
works, not in a skirmish hue, but in ranks and battahons, 
sweeping everything before him. Nor does he sto23 with 
intellectual conviction, but enforces the truth with the most 
direct personal application. Old Lyman Beecher used to 
define eloquence as " logic on fire " — a phrase which de- 
scribes exactly that of Dr. Palmer. It is refreshing in 
these days of puny preachers, who hesitate and stammer 
even over the words of the Almighty, to listen to one who 
knows what he believes, and whose force of conviction 
speaks out in his clear, ringing voice. Such faith in the 
preacher ins23ires faith in the hearers, and thus it is that 
men are built up and established in the truth. 

Very different was the scene at night, when three thou- 
sand people gathered in the largest hall of the city to hear 
Mr. Moody, whose style is the greatest possible contrast to 
that of Dr. Palmer, as he seems, in his free, off-hand way, to 
disdain logic, and yet he has a logic of his own; though he is 
so eager to get close to his hearers that he is impatient at 
being delayed by formal arguments. If we might compare 
him to a soldier, we should say that he was so fierce to be 
at the enemy that he leaped over the breastworks to come 
to close quarters. To-night he spoke from the parable of 
the guests invited to the supper, all of whom *' began to 
make excuse.^' He enumerated these excuses, and as he 
held them up one after another, he literally tore them to 
pieces with fiery indignation. I never heard him speak 
with so much 230wer before. Mr. Sankey sung 

"Jesus of Nazareth passetli by," 

which recalled the sweet Sabbath evening that I heard it in 
INazareth itself; and 

"When the clouds have rolled away," 



"THIS IS MY OWN, MY NATIVE LAND." 79 

a song which pierces the heart like an arrow, causing us at 
the same moment to weeji and to rejoice, as we think of 
the manifold griefs and anxieties which hang darkly over 
this life, and of the time wheu all these " clouds '' shall be 
swept from the heaven, and we shall see only our Father ^s 
face. The meeting was followed by one of inquiry, hun- 
dreds moving toward the room in rear of the hall to listen 
to Mr. Moody^s more direct j)ersonal appeals. 

Shall I be told that I let my thoughts wander in bye- 
and forbidden-places, if I confess that I enjoyed the serv- 
ices of this day the more because of the consciousness that, 
though far away from home, I was still in '^ my own, my 
native land '' ? Had the Southern Confederacy been estab- 
lished by war, I should now be in a foreign country, and 
even the prayers of the house of God would not have been 
to me the same, and the dear old familiar hymns would not 
have fallen on the ear so sweetly as they do now. I should 
have said in my heart, like the Jews in Babylon, ** How can 
I sing the Lord's song in a strange land?'' No; that was 
not to be. Had it been, we of the North should .not be 
here to-day. We could not walk these streets feeling that 
we were " aliens from the commonwealth " of this portion 
of our American Israel. 



VIL 

EXCURSION" ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI— OLD ESTATES IK NEW 
HANDS — THE SALT MINES AT AYERY^S ISLAND — THE 
BAYOU TECHE AND THE ACADIANS. 

Among other excursions j^lanned for our entertainment 
by our friends, who are always looking out for something 
pleasant for us, was an excursion across the river, to visit 
some remarkable salt mines at a trifling distance of a hun- 
dred and forty miles or so. I had been over the route be- 
fore, on my way to Southern California, but was glad to go 
again. Being of a somewhat impressible nature, I can not 
help getting into a fit of musing in crossing a great river. 
The Mississi23pi is to me more imposing than the !Nile, 
though it have not its hoary antiquity, nor be invested with 
the mystery which for so many ages surrounded the source 
of the great river of Africa. But it seems to me to have 
more breadth and depth, a greater volume and po2ver of 
destruction. I look at it with a feeling of awe as it sweeps 
on its mighty flood, telling as it goes the story of the far-off 
latitude in which it had its birth, and of the rains and 
snows on distant mountains by which it has been swollen 
till it has accumulated a j)ower which nothing can resist. 
Nor is it without a history. It was in 1541 — nearly eighty 
years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock 
— that De Soto discovered the Great River, only to die on 
its banks, and be buried in its waters. For nearly three 
centuries and a half it has rolled over the bones of its dis- 
coverer, its placid surface unvexed by all the woes and agi- 
tations of this troubled world. Is there in nature, unless 

it be in the sea itself, a grander symbol of the government 

(8o; 



O^ THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 81 

of God, sweeping on through the ages, unchecked by the 
power or the violence of man? 

But here we are on the other side of the river. We have 
a long ride before us, but one does not count distances 
with good company. Mr. Hutchinson (the courteous man- 
ager of the Southern Pacific Railroad, who was himself de- 
tained by a strike on the freight lines) gave us as a substi- 
tute his faithful lieutenant, Mr. Eandolph Natili, whose 
name bespeaks his Italian parentage, but who has also 
French and Greek blood in his veins; so that he is one of 
those cosmopolites, knowing half a dozen languages and at 
home in any country, whom Cook of London picks up 
wherever he can find them, to be the guides of his travelling 
parties on the Continent and in the East. A more agreea- 
ble cicerone never took charge of a j)arty. As he had been 
for years connected with the road, he knew every step of 
the way, and gave us the history of the country through 
which we passed, the names of the places and the character 
of the people. 

The country itself is not picturesque. It is a sort of 
amjjhibious region, like one of its own crocodiles, with its 
head on dry land, while the rest of the slimy creature is 
submerged in water. One fifth of the State of Louisiana is 
subject to inundations, though not every year. Those who 
have seen the salt marshes in Holland, or on the coast of 
England, have the exact counterpart of the Delta of the 
Mississij^jDi, which has been formed by the soil thrown up 
by the river as it pushes its way into the waters of the 
Gulf. It was all once lying at the bottom of the sea, from 
which it has emerged in the slow lapse of ages. Indeed, it 
has not its head fully out of water yet, and seems to linger 
like a shy nymjDh of the sea-caves, reluctant to leave her 
watery home. And yet even this half -risen condition has a 
beauty of its own in this very mingling of land and water, 
as low spits of earth run out into the sea, and long bayous 



82 NEGROES IN THE CANE-FIELD. 

stretch ujDward like the lagoons of Venice^ till sea and land 
are locked togethei by their mutually embracing arms. 
True, sach a vast reach of low-lying country is monotonous, 
yet there is a certain grandeur even in monotony when it 
stretches on into infinity. In a few weeks the country will 
take on a marvellous richness of color, as the trees put forth 
their leaves, the wild flowers bloom, and the whole land is 
covered with a semi-tropical vegetation. 

As might be expected from the alluvial character of the 
soil, it is of boundless fertility. We are now in the region 
of sugar plantations; and the negroes are abroad in the 
cane-fields, which are of vast extent. Some are 23lowing, 
turning wp the rich black earth to be warmed by the sun 
(for, although it is but the 15th of February, the Spring- 
time has come); while others, men and women, are bring- 
ing out the cane. All have an air of comfort and content. 
" They hear not the task-master ^s voice. ^' It is a source 
of endless delight to me to look into their happy faces. If 
we had a miserable pessimist on board, who thinks every- 
thing going to " the everlasting bow-wows,^ ^ I would put 
him at one of our windows, where he could catch a glimpse 
of tliose rows of shining teeth, as the creatures laugh from 
ear to ear. I shouldn^t wonder if that tall chap yonder 
called himself Abraham Lincoln, for his legs are about as 
long as " Old Abe^s.^^ But Lincoln never had such a feel- 
ing of pride as his black namesake when he mounts to ride 
across the fields to his little cabin for dinner. A darkey 
on a mule is at a height of earthly grandeur in which he 
does not feel himself to be inferior to Alexander or Napo- 
leon. Care sits on him as loosely as his ragged pantaloons, 
and if anything should trouble him for a moment, he kicks 
it off as he would an old shoe. 

We were greatly amused witli the pickaninnies, that were 
lying about the cabins, like so many Indian paj^ooses, roast- 
ing their woolly heads in the sun. Once indeed we tried to 



OUR FIRST REBUFF. ^ 83 

cultivate their acquaintance, though with a result not alto- 
gether satisfactory. We had stopj^ed at a station to take 
in water, when Mr. Inman and I walked toward a cabin a 
few rods away, on the porch of wdiich sat a colored woman 
with two children, one of whom was choking himself with 
cabbage that he was stuffing into his mouth. We wanted 
to ask how she and her people were getting along. But 
she was suspicious of white folks, and started up like a bear 
that is about to be robbed of her whelps. She seized the 
cubs as if she thought they were going to be stolen by a 
slave-trader, and started away, muttering savagely, " We 
has to bekeerfnl what kind o' folks comes round nowadays. ''^ 
We did not presume to make any further advance, but as we 
turned on our heels, heard her hissing between her teeth 
that '^ she didn't want nothing to do with no sich kind o' 
white folks!'' This was the first snub that we had received in 
all the South. Our fellow-travellers laughed heartily, tell- 
ing us " we had caught a Tartar,'^ and set her down as 
" an ill-tempered wench." But for my part, I jjitied the 
poor woman, thinking that she may have received rudeness 
from some strangers, which made her suspicious of all. 
By and by she will be subdued by gentleness and patience. 
I never saw any human creature so wild that could not be 
tamed by kindness. 

But while the lot of the negroes in Louisiana has been 
lightened, that of their old masters has darkened. The 
abolition of slavery made a total change in the condition of 
the Southern j^lanters. In the old days they lived in an 
easy sort of way — always in debt, to be sure; always pledg- 
ing their sugar and cotton in advance; but still they had 
the land and the negroes to work it, and so they managed 
to make the two ends meet, and kept things going from 
year to year. But when at a single blow they were stripped 
of their labor, they had net the capacity nor the training to 
teach them how to adaj^t themselves to their changed con- 



84 , OLD ESTATES 11^" NEW HANDS. 

dition; it was hard to economize; it was mtich easier to 
borrow; and so they went on until almost every plantation 
was mortgaged to creditors in New Orleans, and sunk 
deeper and deeper under debt, till at last it was swallowed 
up in the abyss. As we passed a plantation, Natili, who 
knows all the great estates, pointed us to a famous old 
mansion, connected with which was a pitiful story. It had 
been in the family for generations, and been the scene of 
boundless festivity and hospitality; but the estate had been 
gradually sinking in the general ruin, until a few weeks 
since the owner, a lady ninety-four years of age, who had 
been a Grandissime indeed, left her old home, where she 
had spent her life in affluence and luxury, and moved into 
the house of her overseer, there to end her days! Could 
anything be more pathetic than this — an aged woman, hav- 
ing a rich inheritance and a proud name, comiDclled at last 
to leave the family mansion, and take refuge under the roof 
of one of her former dependents, where she finds shelter 
only to die — too happy when death closes her eyes on the 
scene of her former pride and*present humiliation! 

It was two o"* clock when we drew up at New Iberiri, and, 
deflecting our course from the trunk line, which keeps 
steadily toward the setting sun till it touches the Pacific, 
we darted off nine miles to Avery's Island, which, by the 
way, is not an island, but a peninsula — a 2)roniontory pro- 
jecting into the Gulf, but still linked by a narrow neck with 
the land. These *' islands'' area feature of this coast, 
and are often extremely beautiful. On an adjoining one 
Joe Jefferson, the actor, spends a portion of each year (he 
is there now; his son went down in the mine with us), en- 
joying the restful solitude, and drinking in health from 
the air of the sea. 

Here was discovered a little more than twenty years ago 
the most remarkable deposit of salt to be found in the coun- 
try. I do not wonder that the Southern people looked 



A CAVERN OF liOCK-SALT. 85 

upon its discovery as Providential: for it came during the 
war, at a time when the Confederacy was hard j^ressed for 
salt, as it was for many other things, when every s^^ring in 
the mountains which had even a slight saline mixture, was 
carefully sought out, and the water evai^orated to furnish 
what is almost a necessary of life. But here was a mine, 
where the rock-salt lay not only in beautiful crystals, but 
in great masses, to be quarried like blocks of granite. The 
more it was explored, the richer it proved. Descending a 
shaft more than a hundred feet in depth, we found our- 
selves in a vast cavern, like one of the numerous chambers 
in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, or the Grotto of Adels- 
berg in Austria. From the center, side-chambers branch 
off in every direction. The effect was very striking as the 
blue lights that were burned at a distance were reflected 
from the sides around and the arches above. It was as 
weird a scene as one could imagine in some vaulted cham- 
ber of the under-world. The salt is mined like coal, the 
solid walls being drilled with holes, and blasted away with 
dynamite or giant-joowder. These blocks, after being 
broken into portable size, are carried up the shaft, and 
ground to fine poAvder for .table-salt. The amount sent 
abroad is immense. Mr. Armour found here three of 
his Refrigerator cars waiting to be loaded for their great 
cattle-yards m Kansas City. The Armour Brothers of 
Chicago pay nearly a million of dollars a year for salt 
alone ! 

After this most interesting subterranean visit, we came 
to the light of day, and walked i^erhaps a mile to the house 
of the Averys, who are the owners of the island and the 
mine. The house stands on a knoll which commands as 
p>retty a view as one could wish to behold. Where could 
one look out on a more delightful combination of land and 
sea than sitting on this broad veranda, turning on one side 
to the vast lowland§ backed by great forests; and on the 



86 BAYOU TECllE AND THE ACADIANS. . 

other to the watery plain, broken only by the white caps of 
waves, and the sails of shij^s passing along the horizon? 

In harmony with so much beauty without, was the in- 
terior of this old mansion, where, though strangers, we 
were entertained with the kindest hos23itality. It was 
pleasant to find on this Southern verge of the Republic 
those who were linked by many ties with the North, where 
they had friends and relatives, and were educating children 
in Northern schools and colleges. Mr. Hall found that 
they had kindred in his father's church in New York. 
Among the memories of our journey to the South, 
none is more pleasant than that of the visit to Avery's 
Island. 

When we came back to New Iberia, I begged my friends 
to hold nj:* a little till I could take a quick walk through 
the village, and over the bridge which spans the famous 
Bayou Teche, the scene of the closing part of Longfellow's 
''Evangeline" — a country which Mr. Charles A. Dana 
had excited my desire to see by the description which he 
gave me of a visit several years since with Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor Dorsheimer. They went up the bayou in a steam- 
launch, and could take in all the beauties of stream and 
forest. I could only come to the water-side, and as I stood 
on the bridge, look longingly wp and down the stream. 
The beauty of scenery, I am sure, is not overdrawn, and I 
can well believe that the legend of " Evangeline " is founded 
on a true story. But though the country is still occupied 
by the simple Acadians, whose ancestors came hither from 
Nova Scotia at the beginning of the last century, they do 
not seem to me a very interesting people. Though of 
French descent, they are quite different from the Creoles 
of New Orleans, and speak a different patois. Their lives 
are circumscribed within a very narrow circle, their chief 
excitement being the numerous feasts and saints' days. 
They are literally " islanded " in these bayous, where they 



NEW WAY TO CANVASS FOE A PAPEK. 87 

are shut out from the world almost as much as if they 
were in the island of Juan Fernandez with Eobinson 
Crusoe. 

The only influence which can penetrate these sylvan 
shades is the omnipresent Newspaper, and how it may find 
its way here I learned from Major Burke of " The Times- 
Democrat," to whom New Orleans is indebted for its Great 
Exhibition. He had taken Mr. Dana and Mr. Dorsheimer 
uj) the Bayou in his j)i'ivate launch, which he told me he 
had built for a business purj)Ose, viz: to run up all these 
bayous to canvass for his paper. He put aboard of it half 
a dozen of his brightest reporters, and mounted a cannon 
on the forward deck. As soon as it came in sight of a vil- 
lage it banged away, which woke uj) the sleej)y licibitans, 
who rushed down to the landing to see what was the mat- 
ter, while the daughters of the village came flocking be- 
hind. These were welcomed on board, and maidens and 
rejiorters were soon whirling in a dance. After this " the 
boys " gave marvellous descriptions of the village, as the 
most delicious retreat in the shadow of '' the forest prime- 
val, ^^ a spot too sweet and pure to be profaned by the feet 
of common men; but which was occupied by a simple pas- 
toral race, whose virtues were in harmony with the natural 
beauty of the scenes amid which they dwelt. Of course 
this *' brought down ^^ the simple-minded Acadians, and 
the thrifty proprietor raked in a large addition to the sub- 
scribers to his jDaper, which soon attained an immense cir- 
culation! This was a degree of enterj)rise which the most 
ingenious Yankee could not equal. I wonder that the Sal- 
vation Army has not hit upon the same device, and that it 
does not noAV and then rig up a steam launch to penetrate 
these hidden bayous, and have it mounted with a Gospel 
gun, that should stir the echoes of the forest, and almost 
wake the dead ! 

When we took our places in the car, we were homeward 



88 KETUKN IN THE EVENING. 

bound. The sun was setting- beliind us, casting his last 
rays over the broad landscape^, and soon the twilight came 
on; but as we sat in the gloaming, the incidents of the day 
gave a pleasant turn to our thoughts. We stoj)ped but 
once, to leave our friend Natili at his home in Morgan 
City, forty miles from New Orleans, and an hour later saw 
the lights of the great city reflected in the waters of the 
great river. 



VIII. 

MEMOKIES OF THE LOST CAUSE — SOUTHERN LEADERS — 
CONVERSATION WITH GENERAL BEAUREGARD ABOUT 
BULL RUN — ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON, JEFFERSON 
DAVIS, AND GENERAL LEE. 

When I came to New Orleans two years since. Senator 
Gibson, of Louisiana, gave me a letter to General Beaure- 
gard, wlio did me the honor to call upon me. As he en- 
tered the room I observed, as I thought, a resemblance to 
another illustrious Frenchman whom I had met in Cairo 
two years before — M. de Lesseps. I speak of General 
Beauregard as a Frenchman; for, though a native of New 
Orleans, as were his father and grandfather before him, yet 
his father was born here when Louisiana belonged to 
France, and continued to live here when it was ceded to 
Spain, and when still later it was ceded to the United 
States; so that, while living in one and the same city, he 
had lived under three governments requiring three alle- 
giances. In such changes one coidd hardly expect a very 
jironounced loyalty from father or son. General Beaure- 
gard told me that he could not speak English till he was 
twelve years old. That in a civil war he should cast in his 
lot with the people of his own State, whose language he 
s^^oke, is less surprising than the contrary would have been. 

It was a new experience to find myself face to face with 
the man who had fired on Fort Sumter, and who had won 
the first battle of the war. As I led the way to these 
eventful periods of his career, of course not to provoke 
controversy, but to draw him out, he spoke of them not 
boastfully, but freely. I was especially interested to hear 



90 GENERAL BEAUREGARD. 

details of the Battle of Bull Run. It was a curious coin- 
cidence that the two commanders in that battle, Beaure- 
gard and McDowell, had been classmates at West Point, 
and that having been students in the art of war, in the 
same military school, under the same teachers, they were now 
to be pitted against each other in the field. To my remark 
that military authorities had said that McDowell's disposi- 
tions for the battle were excellent, but were defeated by 
those unexjiected and inexjolicable complications which 
often defeat the best plans in war, he answered that * ' his 
fatal mistake was in not attacking in force the first day;'" 
that he was then greatly superior in numbers, and that if 
he had attacked then, he (McDowell) would have smashed 
him! But the delay of two or three days gave time to 
bring ten thousand men from Richmond, and other re-en- 
forcements from the army of Joseph E. Johnston, so that he 
was able to take the offensive. 

He described very vividly the crisis of the battle, when 
the latter force was coming on the ground. He saw a 
movement in the distance of troojos a2)proaching, but could 
not at first tell whether they were friends or foes. The 
flag then used by the Confederates differed but little from 
that of the Union; it was not easy to distinguish the stars 
and bars from the stars and stripes. It was a hot day in 
July, and the flag hung by the staff. For a few minutes 
he was in intense anxiety. At length a light breeze caused 
the drooping ensign to unroll, and as it was flung out by 
the wind he recognized the flag of the Confederacy, and 
instantly desj^atched his officers in every direction to order 
a general advance, and the day was won. 

" But,'' I ventured to ask, '' if General McDowell made 
a fatal error in not attacking before your re-enforcements 
came up, did you not make a similar mistake in not press- 
ing your advantages after the battler Why did you not 
march upon Washington while our troops werQ denaoralized 



THE UATTLE OF BULL RUN. 91 

by defeat? In the panic you might have taken the capital, 
and perhaps ended the war. '^ 

No doubt he had often heard this suggestion before, to 
which he was prepared with a reply. He thought it would 
not have been so easy, even at that moment, to capture 
Washington; for that even a small force, by j)lanting 
cannon so as to sweep the Long Bridge, could have pre- 
vented his crossing; while, he said, vessels of war were 
lying in the Potomac, with heavy guns, which, moving up 
and down the river, could sweep its banks. But he added 
that a week or two after he thought he coiild have taken 
the city by marching his army higher uj) to a j)oint where 
he could ford the Potomac. Had I asked him why he did 
not, I presume he would answer that he was overrided by 
Mr. Davis, who was disposed to be very cautious, and not 
to j)eril the advantage already gained by any rash move- 
ment. He might have used still stronger language: for 
there is no love lost between him and the late President of 
the Confederacy, whom he regards as his evil genius, de- 
feating his best-laid plans, and so preventing the other and 
greater victories which he would have won. 

In relocating this conversation I violate no confidence, 
for General Beauregard only gave me in brief what he has 
stated at far greater length in his published volumes. But 
there was a peculiar interest in hearing these details of that 
first battle from the lij)s of the chief actor in it. Often as 
we recur to that crisis of the war, we see on how slight a 
thing may turn momentous issues. Some may call it ac- 
cident; others will call it Providence. A devout mind will 
recognize in small things as well as in great the hand of 
the supreme Disposer of events. " Man proposes, but God 
disposes.''^ To us of the North that first defeat was a 
bitter humiliation; and yet before the war was ended we 
saw — or thought we saw — in it a purpose of wisdom and of 
goodness. Had we been victorious in that first battle the 



92 GEN. ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON AT SHILOH. 

movement of secession might have been crushed in its very 
beginning, and tlie Union restored without those long years 
of battle and blood, of mourning and woe. Yet at what a 
price should wo have bought a -peace — at the price of con- 
cessions in which the North would have sacrificed all its 
principles, and slavery would have been made stronger 
than ever, to be preserved and perpetuated for generations 
to come. This was not to be. The Ruler of nations had 
His own ends to accomj^lish. To that end was needed a 
people in another temper than that of compromise. It 
needed that first defeat, that stinging lesson, to arouse the 
North, and nerve it to a four years^ struggle. So God led 
us on, not by the way of uniform success, over the heiglits 
of victory, but often through the deep valley of humilia- 
tion, to bring us to the great deliverance which He had in 
reserve for us — that of a restored country and of miiversal 
liberty. 

But the Battle of Bull Run was not the only instance in 
the war in which the fate of the country seemed to hang 
on a thread. Another instance was brought to my atten- 
tion in New Orleans in conversing with another gentle- 
man, who, if not so prominent an actor in those scenes as 
General Beauregard, was a most intelligent spectator of 
them — a man of New England ancestry and education, 
whose grandparents were on one side from Massachusetts, 
and on the other from Connecticut, and who is himself a 
graduate of Yale. I refer to Col. Preston Johnston, one 
of the most cultivated men in the South. He is a son of 
Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who commanded the Con- 
federate army at the Battle of Shiloh (or Pittsburg Land- 
ing), whose Life he has written, in prej)aring for which he 
has of course collected with the utmost care the details of 
the battle in which his father fell; and he gave me his de- 
cided opinion (an 023mion shared, I am told, by the great 
body of Confederate officers who took part in the battle) 



CHAEACTER OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 93 

that " when he was shot and fell from his horse he had 
gained a great victory ; and that if he had not been killed 
at that critical moment, in two hours more he would have 
captured Gen. Grant and Ms whole army !'' Of course 
this opinion is stoutly disputed by writers on our side, yet 
I believe even they admit that the Union forces were 
strained to the very last point to hold their ground until 
the arrival of Gen. Buell; and it is at least possible that the 
continued assault of the Confederate army under the same 
commander, who had been so brilliantly successful in the 
earlier part of the day, might have made the success com- 
plete! If so, here is one more illustration of the truth so 
often taught in history, that issues of the highest moment 
may turn on the life or deafch of one man! 

Few men have had a better ojjportunity to know the in- 
side history of the war than Col. Johnston, as he was on 
the staff of Jefferson Davis, and in a 230sition to observe 
the intrigues and rivalries and ambitions of leaders in the 
army and in Confederate j)olitics. I was curious to know 
how Mr. Davis was regarded by one who had been in his 
intimacy; whether he was one of the men who appear 
great at a distance, and grow small as they are approached; 
but lest the question should be embarrassing, I put it in a 
guarded way, which admitted of a vague and general 
answer, that would not commit hmi who gave it. But he 
answered without the least reserve, and while he might 
have been influenced by a feeling of loyalty to his chief, yet 
he spoke with the utmost candor and sincerity. He said 
Mr. Davis always impressed him as a truly great man; and 
as to his integrity, he was so inflexibly honest — he had so 
little of the spirit of a demagogue — ^that he lost popularity by 
refusing to stoop to the common arts for conciliating oppo- 
sition. Where ordinary politicians would have used money 
from the Secret Service Fund to bribe the press, or have 
distributed military titles, which he had in his gift, to secure 



94 GENERAL LEE. 

the support of men who were lukewarm or hostile, he abso- 
lutely refused to expend a dollar, or to give a single com- 
mission, which was not strictly in the line of his public 
duty. 

This was a new view of the " arch-rebel," but one which 
I was glad to receive; for I do not like to think of any man 
who is evil sj^oken of, that he is as black as he is painted. 
Nor have I any reason to doubt the correctness of the 
portrait here drawn. John C. Calhoun, the life-long de- 
fender of Slavery, was a man of stainless character, who 
acted from a high sense of honor and of duty. Of course 
that did not make his political theories the less dangerous. 
Such cases rather prove that a false principle carried out 
with inexorable logic, may be as destructive to the peace of 
a State and the happiness of a people as the most selfish 
ambition. 

But the name which evokes most popular enthusiasm at 
the South, is not that of Jefferson Davis, but of Gen. Lee, 
of which New Orleans furnished a striking proof two years 
since on the unveiling of a statue in bronze of the Con- 
federate Chief, which had been erected in one of the public 
squares. The work had been in progress for some time; 
for the statue surmounts a lofty column, or obelisk, ap- 
parently designed to suggest a resemblance to the Column 
of Napoleon in the Place Vendome in Paris. The statue 
is not a great work of art. The figure is rather heavy, not 
to say clumsy. Of course it had to be of colossal size, to 
be in proportion at such a height. The great soldier has 
no sign of his rank, wearing only his sword and belt. He 
has not even a military caj) on his head, but the soft felt 
hat which his soldiers knew so well. Still there is some- 
thing majestic in that martial figure, with arms folded as 
if in meditation, standing aloft against the sky. 

The statue was unveiled on the 22d of February, the 
birthday of Washington. The occasion brought together 



COLUMN AND STATUE TO HIS MEMORY. 95 

a concourse which filled the whole square, and overflowed 
into the adjoining streets. In the mihtary procession 
Union soldiers took part as well as Confederates. One 
who was " a looker-on " told me that it was very touching 
to observe the contrast between the blue coats and the gray, 
the Northern soldiers coming on the ground in fresh uni- 
forms, with arms glistening and bands playing; while the 
Confederates showed but too well that the war had left 
them little to expend on the mere trappings of a military 
parade. But these old soldiers had no reason to be ashamed 
of garments which they had worn through successive cam- 
paigns. As they gathered round the base of the column, 
and looked upward, their breasts swelled with pride and 
their eyes filled with tears, as if they were under the eye of 
one whom they had so often followed through the smoke of 
battle. 

But while the hour was full of stirring memories, there 
were no unseemly boastings, no bitter words or harsh re- 
criminations, to mar i\\Q tender character of a scene which 
was not a revival of the spirit of war, but rather a Festival 
of Peace, since in it those who had once been enemies — 
soldiers of the Noi-th and of the South — joined to pay a 
tribute to one whom history will recognize as at least a 
great Commander. 

But mere military genius, however great, can not explain 
the sentiment which one finds in all the South for the 
memory of Gen. Lee. There must have been something 
in the man, as well as in the soldier, to kindle such enthu- 
siasm. What was it that inspired such a feeling in the 
breasts of a whole people? Few had a better opportunity 
to know him than Col. Johnston, who as a Professor in the 
College at Lexington, Va., was associated with him for 
four years. To him Robert E. Lee was the ideal of man- 
hood. His very form and bearing, like those of Washing- 
ton, united grace with dignity. " I never saw him,^' he 



96 HE DIED OF A BROKEN HEART. 

said, ^' sit or stand in an ungracefid attitude. I never 
heard him say a word which I would rather had not 
been spoken — never a word in the humblest presence which 
might not have been said in any presence. And this not 
because he was on his guard, studying his words, but be- 
cause his nature was simple and pure, noble and good. 
The impression of greatness which one had who saw him in 
the field, was not spoiled by any littleness in his more quiet 
hours. In private intercourse he was so gentle and so con- 
siderate of others, that he won the hearts of all around 
him, and those who knew him best loved him most. " 

This tenderness for others wore upon him after the war 
perha23s more than the fatigues of his camjDaigns. Nor did 
he find relief in venting his indignation upon his enemies. 
Some Southerners, like Toombs of Georgia, found comfort 
in cursing the North. It " did them good '^ to let off their 
violence and rage. Old Jubal Early, who has the reputa- 
tion of being very profane, has been heard to say " If Gen. 
Lee had only taken it out now and then, as I do, in a good 
swear, he would be alive at this day!^^ But Gen. Lee was 
made of other stuff. He could not " take it out " in 
cursing. That would not drown the cry of those who wept 
for the dead, and had no comforter. lieflection on all the 
sorrow that he witnessed, clouded the evening of his days, 
and hastened his end. Col. Johnston, who watched with 
him a few nights before he breathed his last, tells me that 
though some temj^orary cause may have brought on the last 
illness, it' was the opinion of the physicians that the real 
cause of death lay further back — that he died of a hrokeu 
heart! None who saw him in those last years doubted that 
he suffered keenly — not for himself, for the failure of his 
military plans, or the defeat of his ambition, but at all tlie 
misery which had come upon the peoj^le whom he loved. 
He saw the South ruined by the war — its once happy homes 
made desolate, sons and brothers lying on a hundred battle- 



GREATER IN^ DEFEAT THAK IK VICTORY. 97 

fields, while mothers and daughters and sisters were reduced 
to utter penury. From all that broad territory came up 
the wail of widows and orphans, and the cry entered into 
his ear and into his soul. This " burst his mighty heart/' 
and he laid him down among the mountains of his beloved 
Virginia, and died almost without sj)eaking a word ! 

Such a death was the fitting end of such a life, and in- 
tensified the feeling with which the people of the South re- 
garded their chieftain. To them he was greater in defeat 
than he would have been even in victory. He not only led 
them to many triumphs, but when disaster came he drank 
with them the bitter cup; he shared their sorrows, and in 
his sympathy with his stricken people, showed that great 
as he was as a soldier, he was still greater as a man. 

All this came to my mind as I stood at the foot of that 
column just at evening, and looked up at that bronze figure 
as it caught the last rays of the setting sun. If the spirits 
of the dead come back to visit familiar scenes, may not 
that of the great Commander sometimes hover about this 
column, not as the monument of his glory, but from 
that height to look abroad upon the land which was so dear 
to him when living? If there be sadness in his eye, as he 
remembers all its sorrows, may it not light up with a gleam 
of brightness at its returning prosperity? 

The war is ended, but its fruits remain— fruits not of 
bitterness, but of blessing, of a better mutual understand- 
ing and increased mutual respect. I believe that the South 
is to have a future far greater than her past. With uni- 
versal liberty has already come a new element of life, the 
forerunner of a progress such as she has never known be- 
fore. If this continues, in another generation all the bright- 
ness of her former history will be cast far into shadow by 
her coming glory. 



IX. 

THE LAST HOSPITALITY — A DIiq":N"EK WITH CONFEDERATE 
OFFICERS — HOW NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN MEN 
CAN TALK ABOUT THE WAR. 

It was our last niglit in New Orleans, and our kind 
friends would not let us depart without one more experi- 
ence of Southern hos|)Ua]ity. Colonel A. H. May had in- 
vited us to meet a number of gentlemen of the city at din- 
ner. Looking round the long table, 1 inquired of one at 
my side the names of the guests, and learned that every 
Southern man had been a Confederate officer. With them 
was seated Major Throckmorton of the United States 
Army, now on duty in New Orleans. 

After we had partaken of the generous repast, Colonel 
May rose and gave a hearty welcome to his Northern 
guests, referring to them individually as men distinguished 
in the commercial world, to whom he and his friends were 
glad to do honor. Others spoke in the same cordial man- 
ner. Across the table from me sat a brother-in-law of 
General Dick Taylor, who, like that famous commander, 
was one of the fighting men of the war. "When General 
Banks went up the Red River on his disastrous expedition, 
this gentleman, then a young officer, got a few rusty can- 
non and blazed away at our gunboats, which was thought 
at the time to be a very daring exploit. To-night he spoke 
in a hearty, manly way, like the brave soldier that he is — 
a mode of " assault " that is the most sure to be followed 
by " unconditional surrender." 

After so many kind words, there must needs be some 
reply, and my fellow-travellers seemed to think that that 



ADDRESS TO COKFEDEKAIE OFFICERS. 99 

friendly office belonged to me. Of course the interest of 
what is said on such an occasion is only for the moment. 
Nor do I attach the slightest importance to it except for the 
ivay in ivMch it ivas received. As such, it may have some 
value as showing the feeling of the South toward the North 
since the war. Seeing how kindly it was taken, I have 
tried to think what it was that called forth such a warm 
response. The remarks were quite informal, and it is im- 
possible to recall them precisely. And yet the occasion is 
so distinctly in mind, as is my own feeling at being in a 
group of Confederate officers, that I think I can give an 
outline of what I said. As near as I can remember, it 
was in substance as follows: 

" It is very kind of you. Sir, and of the distinguished 
company which you have gathered round this table, to re- 
ceive us in this way. We come among you as strangers, 
and you make us feel that we are no longer strangers, but 
friends. You throw open your doors to us: w^e sit at your 
table; we eat of your bread and drink of your cup; and 
thus are treated as if we were part of the family, members 
of your own household. There must be something in your 
Southern climate that warms the blood and the heart. For 
some days past we have felt that we were breathing a new 
atmosphere : it was not that we had left behind our cold 
Northern skies and wintry snows, and come into a region 
of Spring; but (better than this) that we looked into faces 
that not long ago were turned away from us, but in which 
there now gleamed a returning affection, like that of 
alienated brothers, who, after a separation of years, meet 
under the old roof, round the old hearth-stone; and we felt 
a strange thrill running along our veins as we grasped the 
outstretched hand and heard the welcoming voice. These 
are things which come not from any jjolitical causes, which 
can not be enacted by law, nor enforced by military power. 
As we sit here to-night, we are drawn to each other, not by 



100 THE TIME HAS COME FOR FRANKNESS. 

the force of law, but by that unwritten law of kindness, 
which is the strongest tie that binds human hearts together. 

" And now. Sir, will you feel that I trespass on the 
courtesies of this occasion, if I speak frankly of what is in 
all our hearts? There was a time when Northern men 
comiug South were cautioned' to be very guarded in their 
conversation. They might talk of the cotton crop, the 
delicious climate and the peculiar vegetation of your forests, 
the trees bearded with moss, and all that; but make no 
allusion to 'the late unpleasantness.' This is a kind of 
hypocrisy which deceives neither one side nor the other. 
"Why should we not talk about what we are all thinking 
about, and what indeed is the greatest event in our coun- 
try's history? Has not the time come when we can talk of 
these things without awakening a feeling of bitterness? I 
believe that where there is a right spirit (as there is getting 
to be now), nothing is so helj^ful to mutual good-will as 
absolute frankness; that the more we talk of the war — 
kindly of course, but freely — the more we shall understand 
each other, respect each other, and in the end love each other. 

" Believing this, I venture to say a few words. Do not 
be shocked if I express the oj^inion that the late war, terri- 
ble as it was, was yet the instrument in the hands of God 
of what could be accomplished in no other way, and thus 
in its issues was an immeasurable blessing both to North 
and South, and as General Grant alwa3^s affirmed, ' more 
to the South than to the North.' Of course no minister of 
religion will ever defend war as war. In itself it is one of 
the greatest calamities that can come upon the human race 
— a calamity with wliicli God scourges the nations when He 
would destroy them and grind them to jDOwder. We can 
not even think without horror of that terrible explosion of 
human passion, in which men seem to be transformed into 
wild beasts, destroying one another. 

*' But for all this, there are things worse than war. 



WE SHOULD NOT FORGET THE WAR. 101 

National dishonor is worse; national degradation is worse. 
There are times when a nation dies morally because of its 
very peace and prosperity: when a people become enervated 
by luxury, and sunk in universal selfishness — a hot and 
stifling atmosphere, which only the fiercest thunder-storm 
can drive away. In these great struggles, while there is a 
terrific disj^lay of human passion, there come out also the 
noblest qualities which dignify our nature — honor, courage, 
and self-sacrifice. Thus it is that the most splendid speci- 
mens of Ameiican manhood are those which stand out 
against the dark background of war. I need not mention 
names. Southern hearts as well as Northern hearts are 
full of heroic memories, which I think neither you nor we 
shall be base enoRgh to let die. 

" I have heard it said that it is better to forget these 
things. Forget them? Forget the greatest chapter in our 
history — the greatest exhibition ever given of American 
power? True, it was a Civil War, but it was a war of 
giants — a war which demonstrated as never before the 
strength of the American people. European soldiers and 
statesmen looked on in wonder at the mighty struggle, 
and taking it as the measure of our resources, reasoned 
within themselves. If a nation can maintain such a war for 
four years, and keep tivo such armies in the field, what 
must 'be its j)ower when these antagonists are reconciled, 
and their forces are combined ! 

" The one great social and political result of the war 
was the removal of slavery, and whether that has been a 
loss or a gain, it is for you to say. The gentleman here at 
my side (a Confederate officer) tells me that it has been 
an immeasurable gain; that, simply as a matter of economy, 
it is cheaper to hire labor than to own it; and that, though 
he fought to uphold slavery, he is glad that it has been 
overthrown. In this he but says what I have heard from 
all Southern men with whom I have conversed. 



103 MORAL CAUSES WOULD NOT DESTROY SLAVERY. 

"And yet this, which you now recognize as so great a 
gain, was the result of war, and, in my judgment, would 
not have been attained without war. I know how com- 
placentl}^ some reason that moral causes would have led to 
the removal of slavery; but moral causes work very slowly, 
while the slave j^oijuhition was multiplying fast. I do not 
believe in the j^otency of inlhiences which show themselves 
only in some future generation. On the contrary, many 
causes combined to strengtben slavery, such as the interest 
of planters, the habit of mastery, and the pride of a 
superior over an inferior race. By these mfluences slavery 
was becoming more and more imbedded in our national 
life. The institution, which, at the beginmng of this cent- 
ury, was but a sapling, had grown to be a mighty oak, 
whose roots had struck deep and spread far, and noth- 
ing less than the great upheaval of war could wrench it 
from the American soil. 

" The war, then, was inevitable. It had to come; and, 
since it was ar necessity, and since there can not be a war 
without combatants, without hostile peoples and 02:>posing 
armies, it may be said in one sense that both wrought to 
one end. And as the war removed the only cause of differ- 
ence between the two great sections of our country, it is not 
too much to say that the blood of the North and the South, 
shed upon the same battle-fields, has cemented forever an 
indissoluble Union. 

" So much for the great national result. But through 
what sufferings was tliis end acliieved ! Here I would speak 
with the utmost tenderness. * Every heart knoweth its 
own bitterness.' There are wounds which can never be 
healed, as there are vacant places in our homes which will 
never be filled. As for the North, God only knows what 
we suffered. I remember how the}^ used to sing 

" ' When this cruel war is over, 

The boys will come marching home.' 



SORROWS THAT CAI^ NOT BE FORGOTTEiq". 103 

Alas! many of the boys never came. The mother whose 
heart was breaking when her son went away, as the months 
and years rolled by, longed and prayed for his return. In 
the Summer evening she sat by her window, and asked, 
' Why doesn^t Charley come?' wondering when she should 
hear his familiar step and his cheery voice. Alas! she never 
heard that voice or step again. While she waited and wept 
and prayed, all that was left of her boy was lying in a 
nameless grave among "the mountains of Virginia. 

" Such have been our sorrows, but yours have been even 
greater, as almost your whole arms-bearing population was 
in the field; so that sometimes, after a great battle had 
been fought, it seemed as if the Angel of Death had passed 
over the land, till, as in the j^lague of the first-born in 
Egypt, ^ there was not a house in which there was not one 
dead." Such sorrows can not be forgotten, they have sunk 
too deep in the hearts that survive, and can only cease to 
be felt when those hearts cease to beat. As I look in the 
faces of Southern women I see no trace of anger, but some- 
times an inexpressible sadness, a far-away look, as if their 
eyes were fixed on some object at a distance, a beloved son 
or brother, who had gone and would not return. Who of 
us does not know that look; who has not seen it on the 
faces of Northern mothers and sisters? Such faces are 
fewer now than they were soon after the war, for of the 
greater part death has closed the eyes that were weeping, 
and the grave has covered the hearts that were broken. 

" Of course in those who still live there are memories full 
of i^ain, sorrows that should never be toadied with an un- 
gentle hand. In Atlanta my friend Mr. Grady invited 
me to his home, where I saw his mother, a Southern lady 
of the finest type, who received me with great kindness. 
' But," he said, ' she can not get over the War. 3^ y father 
luas hilled at Peter shir g!'' Wlio can say anything to grief 
such as this? I was silent, but I thought of another 



104: HOW CAN WE LOOK IN EACH OTHEE^S FACES? 

who perished there — a brave young captain from my native 
village, whose name is graven on a humble stone in our 
cemetery, though his body is not beneath it, for it was 
buried m the terrible slaughter of ' the crater/ What can 
we say to these things, but to mourn over the folly and 
madness which brought such unholy strife, and, in the name 
of all the beloved dead, endeavor to be more gentle and 
kind to the living? 

" After such bereavements, on one side and on the other, 
how is it possible for those who have thus suffered to look in 
the face those whose hands have been lifted against the ob- 
jects of their dearest affection? I will answer by a single in- 
stance, which is a tyjje of thousands. A friend, who long 
resided in St. Louis, told me recently of a lady of that c-ity 
who had a son in the Confederate army, that was killed in 
the war — a sorrow which overshadowed her whole life. So 
saddened was she by it that she could not visit the ISforth, 
until at length she was ordered by her physician to a 
Northern watering-23lace, where her appearance in deep 
mourning touched every heart. Es23ecially did it attract 
a Northern lady, who was unremitting in her attentions to 
her Southern sister. When the latter was about to leave, 
she bade her friend good-bye, saying that ' she should never 
return;^ and to the inquiry ' Why?' she answered in a word 
that told the whole story, * I lost a son in the war!^ Her 
friend's eyes filled with tears as she replied, ' I too lost a 
son in the war,' and instantly they threw themselves in 
each other's arms. At that moment the bitterness of years 
was blotted out (even though the grief remained) as these 
two noble women, daughters of the South and the North, 
were drawn to each other, not only by the ties of woman- 
hood and sisterhood, but by the still stronger tie of a com- 
mon sorrow. 

" If the prize of virtue be given according to the meas- 
ure of suffering, it must be awarded to the South, which 



KETURiq^ OF THE SOUTHERN SOLDIERS. 105 

suffered far more than the North. I know of few things 
m history more pathetic than the return of the Southern 
soldiers after the war. Those of the North marched back 
to tiieir homes in all the j^ride of victory. When the armies 
of Grant and Sherman swept through Pennsylvania avenue 
in Wasliington, under the eye of the President, there was 
nofc a man whose heart did not beat high with the proud 
assurance that the cause which he had fought for had been 
gained. 

*' Not so with the veterans of the South. They did not 
return as an army, for their military organization was de- 
stroyed, but in fragments^ worn with the march and the 
battle, having fought for years and failed at last. They 
came back to the old home jDcrhaps to find it in ashes, 
or desolate because of those who had gone out from it 
never to return. There was such an exhaustion of the 
South that the situation seemed almost hoj^eless. The 
country was ruined. Vast tracts had been ravaged by 
hostile armies, and on every hand there had been a degree 
of waste and destruction which it seemed as if generations 
could not rej^air. But this very depression only gave fresh 
opportunity to show the vitality and energy of the Southern 
people. Much as I admire the courage of your soldiers in 
the battle-field, I admire still more their spirit when they 
confronted this new trial. Facing the desperate situation, 
the soldiers of Lee and Stonewall Jackson laid aside their 
weapons of war, and put their hardy sinews to the labors 
of the field. 

^'And nobler still, if anything can be nobler, was the 
conduct of the matrons and daughters of the South. Even 
during the war there was a chivalrous feeling toward them. 
We knew how they suffered, and it added to our own 
burden of sorrow. Nearly forty years ago I heard Eufus 
Choate speak of the attitude of the old Whig party toward 
the Mexican War, and I can hear now his rich voice as he 



106 THE SOUTHERN WOMEN^. 

said, ' The wail of the daughters of Mexico and of America 
is no music to their ear. ' So in the midst of our great 
agony, it was only an aggravation to know that all over this 
beautiful land of the South th^re was mourning and lamen- 
tation — ' Rachel weej^ing for her children, and that could 
not be comforted because they were not/ And when, after 
the war, women of gentle birth, who had never known any- 
thing but luxury, finding themselves utterly impoverished, 
stooped to menial services, such as before had been per- 
formed by slaves, the feeling toward them was one of en- 
thusiasm. All honor to these heroic women, who, by their 
courage and constancy, showed themselves worthy to be 
the mothers of a mighty race! 

"And now, thank God! this cruel war is over. Peace 
has come, and come to stay. All over this broad land the 
sun shines without a cloud. We are one peoj^le, having 
one country. Underneath all our differences there has 
always been a national feeling, which was a constant force, 
like gravitation, to bring us together. In that ' funda- 
mental law,^ not of the Government, but of the great 
American heart, we recognize the will of the Almighty that 
the North and the South ' should be no more twain but 
one flesh, ^ and ' What God has joined together let not man 
put asunder. ' 

" We do not ask you to forget the past, as we certainly 
shall not forget it. Cherish the memory of your heroic 
dead, and visit their graves on Decoration-day to cover 
them with flowers. Such communion with the dead is in- 
structive to the living. We can not bring them back, but 
we can learn the lesson which they teach; and if they 
could speak to us, can you doubt that their one request 
would be that all bitterness and strife should be buried in 
their graves: 

" Speaking to soldiers, to Confederate officers, I say to 
you what I would say to the distinguished officer of the 



GEN^ERAL GRANT AND GENERAL LEE. 107 

United States Army at my left. Follow your leaders! 
Could there be a better guide for us all — soldiers and 
civilians, North and South — than to follow the counsels of 
General Grant and General Lee? We sit here to-night 
under the very shadow of a monument '' (in the adjoining 
square) " lofty as the Column of Trajan at Rome, on which 
stands a colossal statue in bronze of your great soldier. As 
you pass it day by day, and look up and see that majestic 
form outlined against the sky, you remember him as he ap- 
peared in the day of battle. Will you not think of him also 
when the battle was over? Great as he was in war, he was 
greater in peace, when, Avith his heart full of sorrow, he 
retired to his quiet home in Lexington, setting an example 
of moderation and self-control truly sublime, and trying to 
calm the agitation of his suffering people. To the end of 
his days he used all his great influence for peace. ' Do not 
train up your children in hostihty to the Government of 
the United States,' he said to a mother who had been 
widowed by tlie war, and who brought her son to him to be 
educated. To these counsels of peace there is a touching 
response from the death-chamber of our great soldier, 
as he talked with General Buckner most tenderly of 
the South, and uttered his dying wish for its full recovery 
from all the disasters of the war. Here is a lesson for us. 
If we cherish the spirit of General Grant, you can find no 
better example than that of General Lee. 

'^ AYith the Union thus re-established, what a future 
opens before our country, growing in poi^ulation and 
wealth as never before! I hear the tread of the millions 
that are coming to take possession of this valley. When 
this vision is fulfilled; ' when ' (to quote the words of your 
own great orator. Sergeant S. Prentiss), ' this Crescent City 
shall have filled her golden horns; when in her broad- armed 
port shall lie the products of the industry of a hundred 
milhons of fx*eemen; then may the sons of the Pilgrims, 



108 PUTUKE OF THE UNION. 

still wandering from the bleak hills of the North, stand 
upon the banks of the Great River, and exclaim, Lo! this 
is our country! When did the world ever witness so rich 
and magnificent a city; so great and glorious a Republic?^ '^ 
As we rose from the table, every Confederate officer 
present came to me and thanked me for what I had said, 
and expressed his hearty agreement with it. The response 
was the same in New Orleans that we had found in Atlanta, 
in Nashville, and in Montgomery. If the course of remark 
appear rather grave for the occasion, it was almost un- 
avoidable in the presence of such a company, and the writer, 
in saying what might draw Northern and Southern hearts 
together, aimed to act in the true spirit of " a minister of 
reconciliation/^ 



X. 

NEW ORLEAN"S TO VICKSBUKG — SUGAR PLAITTATIONS — 
BATON EOUGE AND GOV. McENERY — MAJOR BURKE — 
VICKSBURG BY MOONLIGHT — MEMORIALS OF THE 
SIEGE — THE UNION CEMETERY. 

If anybody has a desire to see Plantation life somewhat 
as it used to be in the old days, and as it appeared in 
its best estate, he can hardly find it showing to better 
advantage anywhere in the South than in the hundred 
miles above New Orleans. The Delta of the Mississippi is 
like i;he Delta of the Nile for richness; and even richer, 
since it does not depend on the annual overflow of the 
Great River to keep up its fertility. Nothing in the Valley 
of the Nile can equal these " bottom-lands " of the Missis- 
sippi. Here are the great sugar estates, whose owners were 
always considered the Southern nabobs. With inexhausti- 
ble natural wealth to draw uj^on, the planters grew rich, 
and built the stately mansions which we see, as Ave look out 
of the windows, surrounded with magnolias and orange- 
trees, behind which at a distance are the long rows of 
white-washed cabins of the negroes. What an Arcadian 
picture of peace and plenty, and what a scene for the dis- 
play of the beauties of the Patriarchial Institution! 

In such a country, and with such a climate, slavery 
(which is very much a matter of climate) springs up quite 
naturally. It is a system which flourishes most in hot 
climates, where the very temperature disposes the superior 
race to take life easily, and to impose the burden of labor 
upon others. In Africa itself slavery seems to be a prod- 
uct of the burning heat as much as the palms on the 

(109> 



110 THE TWO SIDES OF SLAVERY. 

desert. And so here it seemed to agree well with this half- 
African climate and this half-tropical vegetation. The 
superficial traveller is very* apt to take such a view of the 
fitness of things, and, as he rides over a countr}^ " where it 
is always afternoon/^ and feels its soft languor creeping 
over him, he almost regrets the absence of an institution 
which made life so easy that it moved on without friction 
or worry of any kind; in which the planter (who is of 
course supposed to have been always generous and indul- 
gent) was truly the patriarch of his large family, the pro- 
tector as well as proprietor of his people, under whose 
gentle rule they lived and died with the minimum of labor 
and without a particle of care! 

But with all the poetry and the sunshine that can be put 
into slavery, there were connected with it some possibilities 
which one can not contemplate with a tranquil mind. 
" Papa,"*' said a little fellow who was born since the war, 
"Did you ever oion my old Mammy? ^' "Yes, my sou; 
but why do you ask?'^ "Do you mean that you owned 
her just as you own ' Daisy ' V^ — a favorite horse. The 
father could not deny it. " And that you could sell her 
just as you coukl sell ' Daisy ^:^^ "Yes/' The child 
made no reply, but went away dazed by a thought w^hich 
23ut his manly little heart in fierce rebellion. And it set 
his father (who was a very kind-hearted man) thinking 
too! As he afterward confessed to a friend, " He had 
never thought of slavery exactly in that lignt. '^ The pos- 
sibility of selling the old nurse of his child — one who had 
loved that boy as his own mother — struck him as never be- 
fore, and he inwardly gave thanks that such horrors could 
no more be enacted in the sight of heaven. 

Those who predicted ruin to this beautiful country if slav- 
ery were abolished will be disapj^ointed (I hope not pained) 
to find that the country " still lives,"'' and is apparently as 
flourishing as ever. If here and there an old planter, dis- 



OLD PLAi^TEES IN THEIR OLD HOMES. Ill 

gustecl at the emancipation of his slaves, has forsaken the 
place of his birth, he did not carry it away with him : " he 
left the land behind/' and the strong hands to till it, so 
that his deserted people might *' cheer up " by singing 
Whittier's '* Song of the Negro Boatmen '': 

" Ole massa on his trabbels gone; 

He leab de land behind; 
De Lord's breff blow him fiirder on. 

Like corn-shuck in de wind! 
De yam will grow, de cotton blow; 

We'll hab de rice and corn; 
Oh nebber you fear if nebber you hear 

De driver blow his horn!" 

But many of the old planters did not desert " the old 
home,'' but stood by it, and now they or their children 
reap the reward. To be sure, slavery is gone; the land is 
no more owned by masters and tilled by slaves; but the 
same population is here, though the two classes into which 
it is divided stand in different relations to each other. If 
you say simply planter instead of master, and laborer in- 
stead of bondman, you have the same men still standing in 
the relation of employer and employed. The same work 
goes on, and the earth yields her increase as before; and 
wherever the present owners have the tact to use free labor 
wisely, they find it quite as profitable as slave labor, and 
by it they have restored much of their old-time jjrosperity, 
and retained in their families the proud inheritance of the 
old " manors " on which their fathers lived and died. 

After running North some hundred and thirty miles we 
came to the foot of a blufi: overlooking the river, which was 
conspicuous at a distance, the more so because crowned 
with a marble structure, which looked like what it is — a 
State House. We were at Baton Rouge, the capital of 
Louisiana. Here we halted to j)ay our respects to another 
Governor. We were marched up the hill, and ushered into 



112 GOVERNOR McENERY. 

the Capitol, where a gentleman of rather slight figure, per- 
haps sixty years of age, was standing to receive us. While 
we were being presented in due form, a number of persons, 
officials of the State House and others, had crowded into 
the room; and before we could retire, a voice with which I 
had become familiar suggested that '' Dr. Field would 
make a few remarks!'' Though taken by surprise, I said 
what I could on the spur of the moment, not hesitating to 
speak frankly about the war and " our common country,'' 
to which the Governor (who, I take for granted, was an 
old soldier, since nobody else has a chance of being elected 
to any office in the South) responded in as loyal a tone as 
one could wish to hear. And when we turned to leave a 
dozen hands were stretched out with a hearty grip, which 
said more j)lainly than words that they too agreed with 
me. The Governor then took my arm and accompanied 
us down to our car. So far as one could judge from this 
long acquahitance of a few minutes, he seemed a very 
quiet, pleasant-spoken gentleman, which sur2)rised me a 
little, as I had somehow got the idea that he was a terrible 
*' fire-eater!" Governor McEnery had been very much 
criticised in New Orleans because of a supposed wish to 
spare a couple of men who had shot another in cold blood, 
and had been tried and condemned to death. As the 
quarrel grew out of some political feud, jjarty feeling was 
enlisted, and there was a strong effort to have their sentence 
commuted; and it was said that the Governor had favored 
the movement by reprieving the men, and thus delaying 
the execution. But, as since we left he has issued his 
death-warrant, and tJiey have been 7m?ig, there is nothing 
more to be said on the subject. 

When we received the Governor on our special train, I 
hope he was duly impressed with awe, as we were when 
ushered into his august presence in the State Uouse; for we 
were travelling to-day with a little more state than usual. 



MAJOR BURKE. 113 

A new road had recently been opened, parallel to the Mis- 
sissippi, from N"ew Orleans to Memphis— a road built by 
New York capitalists, one of whom was in our party, and 
we were making a sort of trial-trip over it. The Vice- 
President had come down from Memphis to see to our 
comfort, and attached his President's car to our President's 
car, which gave increased magnificence to the turn-out 
with which we were making our royal progress through the 
country. If it is a distinction for a traveller to have one car 
to himself, it is double glory to have tivo. With this new 
arrangement, our own car was made to serve merely as a 
dining-room, while in the other we ''spread ourselves '' 
over the luxurious sofas, and had the double pleasure of the 
outlook and the conversation as we rushed through cane- 
Ijrake and forest, with glimpses of the river on one side, 
and of rich plantations on the other. 

The enjoyment of the day was much increased by the 
addition to our party of Major Burke, to whom I have re- 
ferred once or twice. He came into the St. Charles at 
New Orleans just as we were leaving, and we captured him 
on the spot, and carried him off '' a j)risoner,'' and took 
him as far as Vicksburg, from which he could return in 
the night train, so as to be at his desk early the next morn- 
ing. He has had a remarkable life. During the war he 
was a Confederate officer. Since then he has fought two 
or three duels, just to keep his hand in; but I am glad to 
say, in neither did he kill his antagonist, and of course he 
would not be killed himself, for he has as many lives as a 
cat. A dashing soldier, he is at the same time a most 
agreeable talker. AVhere he is, conversation can never be 
dull. He can tell stories not only of the war, but of the 
times after the war, when Louisiana was under the rule of 
the carpet-baggers; and gave us an inside view of the poli- 
tics of the State. He is a warm jiersonal friend of Gov- 
ernor McEnery, whose delay in ordering the execution of 



114 EXPERIMENT OF SKILLED NEGRO LABOR. 

the men in New Orleans he explained as but a j^roi^er defer- 
ence to j)ublic opinion. 

But nothing interested me so much as his experiment of 
skilled negro labor, which grew out of the necessities of 
war. Being attached to that jjortion of the Confederate 
army which was beyond the Mississippi, he found it suffer- 
ing greatly from want of transportation — of horses, of sad- 
dles and bridles, and harnesses and baggage-wagons. If 
horses were injured on the march there was nothing to do 
but to shoot them, as there was no place of cure to which 
they could be sent and cared for till they were fit to take 
their places in the field again. The difficulty in procuring 
proper equipments was still greater. There was a want of 
skilled labor for all this kind of handicraft. The white 
carpenters, and wagon-makers, and blacksmiths, and sad- 
dle- and harness-makers, were already drafted for the army. 
In this extremity, he conceived the idea of taking the 
negroes, and converting them into skilled workmen. It 
did not seem a very promising experiment, but he under- 
took it. Of course he did not take the common run of 
field hands, but picked out those who were most intelligent 
and capable, strong of limb and quick of wit; and with 
such materials he made excellent workmen, and established 
a large manufactory of war material in the interior of 
Texas, where it would not be likely to be interrupted by an 
attack from the Northern army; while the old war-horses, 
instead of being shot, were led off into pastures, where they 
could slowly recover strength, so that their necks should be 
** clothed with thunder ^^ when the sound of the trumpet 
called them to battle again. It was certainly a notable ex- 
periment, which showed at once the capacity of the negro, 
and the wonderful skill and energy of the man who con- 
ceived this bold scheme, and carried it out so successfully — 
a power of organization which he showed a few years later 
in organizing the Great Exposition at New Orleans. 



THE COUNTRY ROUKD YK'KSBURG. 115 

i 

While listening to these reminiscences of the past, which 
may hel]^ to solve a problem of the future in regard to the 
fitness of the negro for a higher occupation than that of 
digging the soil, we caught the name of a place which had 
an historic interest. It was Port Gibson, near which is the 
landing of Grand Gulf, at which General Grant (after his 
boats had run the gauntlet of the batteries at Vicksburg) 
crossed the Mississip^n with his army. A few minutes 
later we gathered on the platform to look up and down 
the Big Black from the height of the long bridge which 
spans it — a river which ap^^ears constantly in the military 
rejjorts of the day. The story was all in mind as it is told 
by the great soldier himself in '' The Century Magazine '' 
with the utmost clearness, while at the same time with the 
utmost simj^licity and modesty. As the eye ranged over 
the country wliich was the scene of that immortal campaign, 
we could imagine the imperturbable chief pushing inland, 
and, as it were, burning his shi^DS behind him, to cast the 
fate of his army on the fate of a battle; fighting from day 
to day, now at Chamj^ion Hills, and now on other bloody 
fields, till he had forced Pemberton back into his intrench- 
ments, and the great siege was begun. 

It was dark when we entered Vicksburg. As we were to 
spend the night in our cars, we had not j^repared to disem- 
bark. But hardly had we come to a stand-still when we 
were suddenly " invaded ^^ with hospitable intent. The 
Confederates were upon us, and there was nothing to do 
for it but to surrender gracefully, at least so far as to en- 
gage to spend an hour at the house of a well-known gentle- 
man, to exchange kindly greetings with our new friends.' 
But I was so eager to see the place that I could not come 
under any man^s roof until I had first taken a general sur- 
vey of the town. So muffling up in a thick overcoat, for 
the evening air was chill, I attached myself to an old resi- 
dent who had been here during the siege, and begged him 



116 SEEING YICKSBUKG BY ^lOONLIGHT. 

to lead the way. It was a beautiful niglit. The full moon 
shone down on city and river. He took me first to the 
levee which sIojdcs down to the landing, while behind us 
rose a long line of hills. As we looked out upon the broad 
surface of the mighty stream, gliding softly and peacefully 
in the moonlight, I could not but contrast the scene with 
that of the night when our fleet ran through a mile of the 
batteries planted alike at the water's edge and along the 
crest of the hills. Of course the commander did not choose 
such a night as this, wlien all his movements would be ex- 
posed as in the light of day. Naturally he would wish to 
take a niglit that was pitch-dark, that his movement might 
be concealed; and I had pictured him in my fancy as drop- 
ping down the river silently, as with muffled oar. But I 
soon saw that this was impossible. A Mississijjpi steam- 
boat is not easily muffled; it has a snort like a war-horse 
that smells the battle from afar, and the revolution of its 
wheels may be heard at a great distance. Besides, the 
movement had been anticipated, and watch had been kept 
by night as well as by day; and no sooner was the fleet in 
motion than an old house on the opposite bank was set on 
fire, so that the river was suddenly lighted with a glare 
that revealed every object for miles, and thus every boat 
was a mark as soon as she came within range. On a high 
point of the bluff at the upper end of the city, the Con- 
federates had planted a huge gun, which from its screech- 
ing sound had been christened "Whistling Dick,''' and 
there they kept watcli for the steamers, which had to round 
a point of land right o^Dposite, by which their broadsides 
were exposed to its fire. As the " Cincinnati " was turn- 
ing the corner a shot plunged into her, and she sunk in- 
stantly. But her fate did not deter her consorts, which 
kept steadily onward. As the whole fleet came into line in 
the channel of the river they were exposed to a terrific fire, 
as all the batteries on the hills belched forth shot and 



, INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE. ' 117 

flame. That they were not annihilated seems a miracle. 
But they put on full steam, and in a short time had passed 
the point of danger. The means of transportation were 
secured, so that when General Grant marched his army by 
land down the west bank of the river to a point far below 
Vicksburg, he had the means of crossing to where the 
great business of war was to begin. 

"' It must have been rather a hot time you had during 
the siege/' I said to my companion. 

'^Wall, it luas rather a wakeful time; we didn't get 
much sleep them days, nor nights either, but after a while 
we got kinder used to it, and would go down into the 
cellars, or crawl into the holes in the sides of the bluff, 
and sleej) there.'' 

'' Are those holes still remaining? I should like to see 
them. " 

"" They have mostly caved in, or been filled up; but you 
can see some of 'em. " 

With that we climbed the hill, and near the toj) my 
guide pointed out a number of pits in which the j^jeople had 
taken refuge. Those into which I crept were mere swallow- 
holes in a sand-bank, enlarged to the size of a man, though I 
should think it must have been pretty hard for a six-footer 
to stretch himself in one of them. At the time of the siege 
some of these " dug-outs " were quite large. The hill- 
side, being of soft earth, was easily excavated, and by dig- 
ging away for a day or two, one might get to himself a 
subterranean chamber, where the earth above him formed 
a cushion for any stray shells that might descend upon it. 
At best they must have been stifling j)laces in those hot 
Summer days (Vicksburg surrendered on the Fourth of 
July) ; but at night they Avere cooler, and one who crawled 
in here, and literally 

" Laid his head upon a lap of earth," 



118" INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE. 

might rest in quietness for a few liours, witliout the fear of 
being blown into eternity. 

On the to]) of the hill stood the Co art House like a 
high tower, and being the most conspicuous object in the 
town, was a mark for the enemy's guns. On the other side 
of the river, one of our gunners, who had a *' Parrott " of 
which he was as proud as a hunter of his favorite rifle, 
thought he would try his hand on the cupola, and " drew a 
bead '' on it, determined to ring the bell! But though he 
fired perhaps hundreds of times, his shots Avent over or 
sidewise, and whatever execution they may have done else- 
where, they did not hit the mark. Once indeed he carried 
away a pihar of the cupola, but did not make the bell ring! 
It was not to be rung by cannon-balls, but by human hands 
in the haj^py days of j)eace that were to come. 

*' But look here!'' said my guide as we passed a Methodist 
church, i^ointing to the rear wall, in which a 23iece of shell 
was lodged during the siege, perhaps to remain as long as 
the ball fired from the British fleet remained in the belfry 
of the Old South Church in Boston. I knew that my 
Methodist brethren w^ere given to sensations, and liked to 
be '^ roused up," but I doubted whether any preacher had 
produced by his eloquence such an awakening as did the 
crashing of that shell into the side of their house of worship. 

It ap2:>ears strange that people could go to church at all 
at such a time. We can not understand how life should 
go on as before, for it seems as if all ordinary duties and 
occupations would be j^aralyzed by the universal terror. 
Bat such is the power of repetition to dull the senses that 
after a while men get deadened to pain and to fear, so that 
they take up again almost mechanically the common round 
of life. They become so used to danger that they can to 
some extent go about their affairs as if it did not exist. 
And so it was that churches were opened and sermons 
preached during that time of horror. 



OBSERVATIONS BY DAYLIGHT. 119 

A gentleman who rode about with us the next day, 
told me that his wife was on her way to the Catholic 
church one Sunday morning, when she stopped at the door 
to speak to an old gentleman, and while they spoke a 
cannon-ball fell between them, and carried off liis hand! 
She immediately bound up the arm with the help of her 
brother, and he was taken home, while she entered the 
church to perform her devotions. In the midst of the 
service a ball crashed through the ceiling over her hepd^ 
whereupon the priest, who was performing the mass, con- 
cluded abruptly and dismissed the congregation, who did 
not stand upon the order of their going, but retreated to 
their caves in the sides of the hills. 

From these memories of war it was pleasant to turn to 
the smiling face of peace, that greeted us as we came to a 
large mansion gayly lighted up, which we entered to receive 
the warmest welcome. After an hour spent with those who 
treated us, not as new acquaintances but as old friends, we 
strode down the hill in the moonlight, to the spacious 
car which served us as a floating hotel. 

But morning had hardly gleamed on the river when I 
was out on the bluff to take in the whole scene by daylight. 
There it lay below us, with every feature outlined as dis- 
tinctly as on a map — the river making a great bend upward 
to Vicksburg, and inclosing a narrow peninsula, across tho 
neck of which Grant tried to dig a canal for his boats with- 
out success. But what man could not do the river itself 
has done, bursting a passage through by the force of its 
mighty current, and wearing a channel broad and deep; 
while it has retired from Vicksburg to such extent ^hat 
she lies now almost stranded, like an old hulk on a sand- 
bank, and willows are growing in the midst of the old 
channel I 

As soon as we could despatch breakfast, carriages were 
waiting to give us a drive. Turning southward^ we rode 



120 THE UNIOiq^ CEMETEKY. 

along the bluff for a mile or two to take in the position of 
the city as related to the river and the surrounding coun- 
try. After scanning with eager eyes every point on both 
sides of the river, we faced about and took in the circuit of 
the hills. The country behind Vick:sburg is broken, ridges 
alternating with deep gullies — a country which is at once 
difficult of approach and easy of defence. One glance 
showed us how small and j)etty had been our idea of the 
siege, as if it were confined within the space of a square 
mile, whereas the Confederate batteries were mounted on 
yonder hills more than a mile away, while Grant's army, 
making a still larger circuit to inclose the former, must 
have stretched from the point where it touched the river on 
the south to where it touched it on the north, over a dis- 
tance of ten or twelve miles, thus coiling round and round 
like a mighty serpent, winding itself closer and closer, till 
the beleaguered city was literally strangled in its tremen- 
dous folds. 

Then riding slowly backward through the city, which has 
such a historic name, we came out at the northern end, 
where, on a hill-side, gleam the white stones of the Union 
Cemetery. Our train had followed us, and waited for us 
on the track below, while we climbed the hill to pay our 
homage to the heroic dead. As the Siege of Vicksburg 
lasted for two months, and was preceded by a series of bat- 
tles, there was literally an army of the dead, whose remains 
were afterward gatliered reverently and tenderly from the 
fields wdiere they fell, and placed in their last resting-place. 
The Cemetery is laid out with much taste, and kept as care- 
fully as Greenwood, though it has no such splendid monu- 
ments, nor such variety of architectural ornament; for of the 
sixteen thousand whose bones are gathered here, less than 
four thousand names are known! Hence they could only 
be laid side by side with their companions-in-arms; and so 
they lie in successive rows and squares, ranks on ranks, a 



THE UNKNOWN^ DEAD. 121 



low head-stone at each grave the only mark of 



sepulchre/' These are the unknown dead! But the ud 



their names be not preserved by history, their deeds will be 
held in everlasting remembrance. They did not die in 
vain : for by their blood they preserved to us the priceless 
blessing of Union and Liberty. And long as yonder river 
rolls its majestic flood to the sea, will a grateful country 
remember those who died that she might hvel 



XL 

FROM VICKSBURG TO 3IEMPHIS — THE CITY OF MEMPHIS 
AND THE GOOD OLD STATE OF TEKKESSEE. 

ViCKSBURG is a hard i^lace to get out of one's mind: it 
has too many warlike memories. That cemetery on the 
hill-side I shall never forget, though we saw it only in the 
broad daylight, which is not the time when we feel most 
the power of the associations of such a spot. What must it 
be at night, when the wind stirs gently in the pines that 
murmur their soft requiem for the dead, and the full 
moon, sinking in the west, silvers the broad expanse of the 
Mississippi, and striking across it, touches with a pale and 
tender light the low head-stones that mark sixteen thousand 
graves! Peace to the " unreturning brave!" 

But a few minutes after we had left this place of sacrM 
memories, we were standing on the platform, to catch a 
glimpse, as we passed, of a large house on the bluif above 
us, which was General Grant's head-quarters during the 
siege. It must have been nearly at the northern extremity 
of the long semicircle wliich he drew around the doomed 
city. Three or four miles further — ten miles above Vicks- 
burg — we crossed the Yazoo, which is a large river, naviga- 
ble by steamboats. It was by the ascent of this river that 
the great soldier made his first attempt to get in the rear of 
Vicksburg, and only when defeated in this, that he tried to 
cut a canal across the peninsula in front of the city; and 
failing in that also, that he formed the daring resolu- 
tion to run the gauntlet of the Confederate batteries, and 
finally succeeded in getting the transports for liis army at 
the point where he wished them, a long distance below the 
city. 

(123) 



THE DELTA OF THE YAZOO. 123 

The bridge which now spans the Yazoo is one of the 
finest in all the South: over nine hundred feet long, built 
of iron, resting on stone piers, and corresponds in its mas- 
sive solidity to the magnificent railroad of which it is a part 
(that from New Orleans to Memphis^ a distance of 455 
miles) — an iron track which has been but recently com- 
j^leted, but which is as solid in its road-bed, and over which 
the wheels run as smoothly, as over many of the oldest 
roads of the North. 

Though we see no trace of the great events of which this 
country was the theatre, and not the faintest vestige of 
military occupation, we are glad to find here and there a 
Northern officer, who since the war has made his home in 
the South. One of General Thomases most trusted com- 
manders has fixed his residence at Chattanooga, and I am 
told is enthusiastic in his praise of that picturesque region. 
And here, fifty-three miles above Vicksburg, we passed a 
large plantation, owned and cultivated by Dr. Phelps, the 
Surgeon-General of Grant's army, who finds himself quite 
at home in the South, and as happy in growing cotton 
in Mississippi as he would be in growing wheat in Illinois 
or Ohio. 

We are now in the Delta between the Yazoo and the 
Mississippi — one of the richest cotton regions in the world. 
The land is especially adapted to produce cotton, yielding 
in some cases a bale to the acre, which is considered a very 
large product. The quality too is of such a grade that it 
brings from, an eighth to a quarter of a cent a pound more 
in the market xt Liverpool than most of the cottons of the 
South, and indeed excels them all with the single excep- 
tion of the sea-island cotton, grown off the coast of the 
Carolinas. 

At Leland, eighty miles north of Vicksburg, a branch 
road diverges to the Lake Washington Country, and another 
to Huntington on the Mississippi, where it connects with a 



124: A MODEL PLANTATION. 

road on the other side of the river in Arkansas, leading to 
Little Rock and Fort Smith. These branches are feeders 
to the trunk line. At the point of junction a large station 
is placed conveniently in the angle of the roads, at Avhich 
travellers from different directions meet and dine together, 
bow across the table, and depart. 

The " crack '^ j^lantation of all this country is that to 
which its owner, Mr. Forgason, has given the pretty name 
of " Clover Hill,"^ though it shows more cotton than 
clover. It is seventy miles below Memphis, and about 
■fifteen miles back from the river. As our train swej^t 
through it, v/e saw the manager riding about on horseback 
to look after the extensive estate under his care. What 
es^^ecially attracted our attention was the ample quarters 
provided for the negro laborers, which showed a proper 
consideration for their comfort. We were sorry not to be 
able to stop and -pay a visit to this model plantation. The 
owner, who lives in Memphis, came to call on our party, 
and it was a pleasure to take by the hand one who is a 
representative of that new race of joUmters which is to make 
the New South richer and hapj^ier than the Old. 

But it must not be supj^osed that this cotton region is a 
monotonous plain, like some of our Northern prairies, un- 
broken by forest or stream. On the contrary, it is well 
watered by " creeks '' and dotted with lakes; and not un- 
f requently we pass from the broad sunshine of a planta- 
tion, where the men at the plough 

" Jocund drive the team a-field," 

into the deep shadows of the woods, or into a tract grown 
up with the wild cane, whose long and graceful stems re- 
minded me of the bamboos of India. Once we stopped in 
the midst of a cane-brake, that our party might suj)ply 
themselves with fishing-rods cut by their own hands. Had 



I AREIVAL AT MEMPHIS. 125 

there been time for sucli diversions, they might have had 
abundance of sport in this very region. Deer are found in 
the woods, and it is said that a hunter who plunges into the 
dense thicket of the cane may sometimes stir up a bear 
who makes a haunt of the reeds and rushes. Forty-five 
miles south of Memphis is Beaver Dam Lake — a beautiful 
sheet of water, on the shore of which has been built a Club 
House for sportsmen, that is a favorite resort of those who 
are fond of fishing or hunting. Nearer to the city is Lake 
View, which is to Memphis what Coney Island is to New 
York — a cool retreat in the heat of Summer. 

It was four o^ clock when we drew up in front of Mem- 
pliis. We found it, like Vicksburg, on the bank of the 
Great River, though not perched on a hill-side, but spread- 
ing out over a more level surface and to much greater ex- 
tent. I could only wish that those who settled the j^lace, 
when they christened it, had had the good sense to give it 
one of the musical Indian names which we found scattered 
along our route; or one which might have some local sig- 
nificance, if it were only to jjreserve the name of the first 
white inhabitant, as Vicksburg was named from the family 
of Vick (whose descendaiits still live in the old house, that 
was pointed out to us), instead of going to Egypt, and tak- 
ing the name of tlie capital of the Pharaohs for a town on 
the Mississippi! But " what's in a name?" There is 
much in a name, and it ought always to have. some degree 
of appropriateness; but Memphis might as well have been 
baptized by the name of Belshazzar or Nebuchadnezzar as 
by that of the ancient city on the Nile. We ivere much 
better pleased witli the name of our Hotel, the ^'Gayoso 
House:'' for " Gayoso " is Indian, and so is native Ameri- 
can, instead of being Egyptian, which is African. But 
while the name is Indian, there is nothing of the wigwam 
in the Hotel, which is one of the very best that we have 
found in all the South; and the town itself, though Egyp- 



126 A WEDDING RECEPTION — MEMPHIS SOCIETY. 

tian in name, is pure American in character, and an excel- 
lent specimen of an American city. 

It was a pleasant change from the regulation dinner, with 
speeches, which had been the usual ending of each day, that 
this evening we were all invited to a wedding-party, not to 
witness a marriage ceremony, which might have been in a 
church, but to a reception given in honor of tJu^ee married 
couples at the house of Colonel Montgomery, the father of 
one of the brides. It was a mile or two back from the 
river, yet the city is built u|) the whole distance. Where 
the business portion ends, the residences begin, and very 
beautiful they are, as they are generally set back from the 
street, and stand in the midst of lawns and gardens, with 
every indication of the wealth and taste of their occupants. 

The occasion was peculiar in being given for three brides, 
who had been married at about the same time — it may 
have been on the same day — and who therefore united in 
this joint reception to their common friends. One of these 
was a granddaughter of President Andrew Johnson. All 
stood together under a bower of roses, beaming with happi- 
ness, and received the congratulations of the guests. The 
occasion brought together a large and distinguished com- 
pany. At one moment we were introduced to a learned 
judge; the next to a lawyer, whose reputation is not con- 
fined to his own city or State; now to a Member of Congress, 
familiar with the society of Washington; and now to the edi- 
tor of " The Memphis Appeal,'^ or ''Avalanche " — papers 
which are known througliout the country. The ladies were 
all brightness and gayety. Among them was a daughter of 
the famous Admiral Semmes of the " Alabama,^^ in whom, 
as in others present, there was a cordiality of manner 
peculiar to the South, and which gives a great charm to 
the best Southern society. I am not in the habit of com- 
paring society in one place with that in another; but I could 
not perceive much dillerence between this reception and a 



LOOKIKG ABOUT THE CITY. 127 

similar one in New York. Wherever in the world you 
bring together "fair women and brave men/' there is 
society. I was reminded of a remark which Mrs. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe made to me after her return from England, 
where she had seen much of high life, and been feted by 
lords and ladies, whom many suppose to be very assuming 
and pretentious because of their rank, but of whom she 
said that she found them *' just like the nicest people in 
our own country;^' that from the very fact that they had 
an assured j)osition, they had the most unassuming man- 
ners. Such men and women do not belong exclusively to 
any class or country: they are the rich inheritance of all 
highly civilized nations. In our own country, they may be 
found alike in the Xorth and the South. If this evening's 
gathering were a fair representation of the society of Mem- 
phis, it must be a very agreeable city to live in. 

The next morning we were driven round the town by the 
Mayor and a delegation of citizens, among whom was Mr. 
Thomas H. Allen, who has been a successful merchant here 
for the past fifty years. We were sur|)rised at the extent 
of the city and its business activity. MemiDhis is one of the 
greatest cotton marts in the South. It is in the line of the 
Cotton Belt, which stretches from east to west, and on both 
sides of the Mississi^opi, cotton being brought in large quan- 
tities from Arkansas to Memphis as the most convenient 
point for shipment. To prepare it for this, we found here as 
at Atlanta, that the first necessity was that it be " com- 
pressed '' to reduce its bulk, and this in itself is a large and 
profitable industry. Col. Montgomery, our host of the last 
evening, is at the head of the most extensive compressing es- 
tablishment; and here again ^ve watched the operation of the 
iron monster, which takes up the big, bulging, bloated bales, 
and squeezes them till all their **' starch " is taken out of 
them, and they lie as flat as so many pancakes. Next we 
entered a factory for exj)ressing the oil from cotton-seed. 



138 MEMPHIS AS A PLACE OF BUSINESS. 

and by the way it kept oozing out, and falling drip, drip, 
into the j^ans below, we judged that the yield was sufficieu t, 
not only to grease innumerable wheels, and make all kinds 
of machinery run smoothly, but to supply ^ ' oleomargarine " 
for the whole Southern country. 

But Memj)his was first laid out, not so much for a manu- 
facturing as a commercial city, its position on the Missis- 
sippi giving it facilities for trade up and down through 
twenty degrees of latitude. It is still a port of entry, as 
one may see by the Custom House, built of stone, which 
stands high up on the bluff, overlooking both town and 
river; and by the stately steamers which are floating up) and 
down. But a portion of the traffic is being diverted to the 
railroads. It seemed a bold movement on the part of the 
newly constructed line from Memphis to New Orleans to 
*'run opposition to the Mississippi river ;^' but the issue 
has justified it, as it transported the very first year several 
hundred thousand bales of cotton, and the amount must 
increase from year to year. Of course transportation by 
water is cheaper than by land, but it is subject to many 
contingencies. The Mississipj^i is an unruly monster: it is 
like a wild horse, which, when he " takes the bit in his 
teeth, '^ is hard to check or to guide. As the factories 
which we have just been visiting stand on the bank, sup- 
ported partly by piles, we went to the rear to look out upon 
the river, and found it coming frightfully near. Although 
the Spring flood had but just begun, the current was sweep- 
ing against the bank with great violence, here and there 
washing it away, so that it must soon be a question whether 
the factories shall not be removed to higher ground, or piles 
be driven thicker and deeper, and filled in with blocks of 
granite, to secure a permanent foundation. In looking at 
the map, I have often been jiuzzled by the windings of the 
Great River, which are like the contortions of a serpent in 
pain, writhing and twisting in its agony, and tried to dis- 



A BRIDGE OVER THE MISSISSIPPI. 129 

cover the final cause of this — how it was clone and tvJiat it 
ivasfor. Now, as I watch it and see its destructive power, 
I can not but look upon it as a provision of Nature or of 
Providence (call it which you please) to preserve the 
country from destruction: for if the Mississippi were to 
flow in a straight line from its head- waters to the Gulf, 
it would acquire such* velocity and momentum, that it 
would sweep away the country on its banks, and carry 
millions of acres of the richest land in the world into the 
sea. 

After we had thus taken a general survey of the city and 
its surroundings, we returned to our car to take our depart- 
ure. Our friends were with us to bid us farewell, and 
Mayor Hadden *' improved the occasion '' to offer a few re- 
marks. In these he enlarged on the growth of Memphis 
in the last few years, and the great future to which it was 
destined. He welcomed the opening of each new railroad 
which made this city its terminus, as it brought more busi- 
ness and more wealth. Across the MississijDi^i were other 
railroads traversing another State, and reaching out their 
long arms into other regions of equal fertility. Why 
should these two divisions of the Great Valley be separated? 
At St. Louis a bridge had been built, so that trains from 
the East and the West rolled across without unloading a 
single car. Why should not Memphis have the same addi- 
tion to its j^resent facilities? That was the one thing need- 
ed, and it was sure to come. '' The next time you visit 
our city,^ ' said the Mayor, raising himself to his full height 
(and he is a tall man), *' you will see a magnificent bridge 
spanning yonder river. And — and — Gentlemen '' [here he 
paused to make his words emphatic] '* we expect you to 
PAY FOR it!" This was received with a shout of applause, 
and from the remarks I heard afterward I do not think it 
would be difficult to raise, even among the members of our 
own party, the necessary sum (only a trifle of two or three 



130 TENNESSEE — A GRAND OLD STATE. 

millions) to build it. Welcome the day! And may we all 
be there to ride over it! 

But just now we are to ride in another direction. Our 
iron horse has been standing on the track for several hours, 
** champing at the bit/' and as we let him go, his head is 
turned to the north-east, making straight for Louisville on 
the Ohio. But it is a long ride, and (as Memphis is in the 
extreme south-west corner of Tennessee, not far from the 
Mississippi line) the distance that we shall make by day- 
light will be within the State of Tennessee, of which I have 
a few parting words to say before we cross the border into 
Kentucky. It is with States as with men: some are over- 
rated, and some are underrated; some j)ass for less than 
they are worth, and some for a great deal more. Judging 
States by a fair test, it seems to me that Tennessee has not 
had justice done to her, either in history or in public opin- 
ion. We hear a great deal about Virginia, though less now 
than a generation ago, when she was the Old Dominion, 
the Mother of Presidents. Then South Carolina, in the 
days of Calhoun, stepped to the front as the defender of 
Southern institutions, the leader in a war which was to 
grmd her to the dust; and behind her stood Georgia, the 
'' Empire State of the South;'' and Louisiana; and Texas, 
which is truly an empire in itself; while further North, 
Kentucky, the home of Henry Clay, was regarded as pos- 
sessing the flower of Southern chivalry. But Tennessee, 
sandwiched between Kentucky and Georgia and Alabama, 
was somewhat overlooked. And yet Tennessee has given 
three Presidents to the Union, while from all the rest of 
the South appears only one other name for more than sixty 
years — that of Gen. Zachary Taylor. Wherefore she need 
not be at all abashed in the presence of her ambitious 
neighbors. Indeed it appears to me that, in the whole sis- 
terhood of Southern States, there is not one more worthy 
to lift up her head than good old Tennessee. 



ITS RIVERS AKD MOUNTAINS. 131 

Certainly not one has a more central or commanding 
position. Tennessee is, geograjDhically, a part of the Great 
Valley. Not only is her western border formed by the 
Mississippi, but her great rivers, the Tennessee and the 
Cumberland, which flow northward, enq^ty into the Ohio, 
and thus find their w^ay back into the *' Amazon of North 
America '' that drains all tributaries from the Alleghanies 
to the Rocky Mountains. But for all this, Tennessee is not 
so exclusively a River State as some others — Mississippi, for 
instance, or Arkansas, or Louisiana — for her territory 
reaches half way to the Atlantic, and she lies stretched out 
on the face of the country, like a sleeping giant, with her 
feet dipped in the waters of the Great River, while her head 
rests majestically in the \si^ of the Eastern mountains. 

Thus she has every variety of surface and scenery. East- 
ern Tennessee is one of the most picturesque portions of 
our whole country. As the mountains of Virginia are con- 
tinued south-westward along the line that separates Ten- 
nessee from the Carolinas, and reach out far on either side, 
those who are familiar with the beauties of the Blue Ridge 
and the Shenandoah Valley, will find these repeated in 
Eastern Tennessee. And yet this region is little known to 
Northern excursionists, wdio make their annual visits to the 
White Hills of New Hampshire, and seem not to know any- 
thing of a region of equal attraction, which is hardly 
twenty-four hours from New York. Now that a novelist 
has appeared in the person of a Southern lady, wdio has laid 
the scene of her stories in the Great Smoky Mountains of 
Tennessee, which she describes with the touch of a land- 
scape painter, it is to be hoped that the lovers of the pict- 
uresque will turn their steps in that direction. If we had a 
friend who was fond of riding on horseback, and looking 
about for some untravelled region in which to take his 
Summer excursion, we should advise him to take his way 
to Eastern Tennessee, where he might j^assa few weeks de- 



132 TENNESSEE SETTLED BY RELIGIOUS MEN. 

lightfully, riding over the ridges, and coming down into 
the valleys which lie between — a constant succession of 
mountain and valley, which will remind him of many beau- 
tiful pictures in the Tyrol. 

Possessed of such a territory, the population of Tennes- 
see has proved itself worthy of its splendid domain. At 
the time of the Revolutionary War, Tennessee was a part 
of North Carolina, and was largely settled from that State. 
Before the sons of New England pushed through the forest 
to the Lakes, the backwoodsmen of the Carolinas, clad in 
buckskin, with axe and gun, were slowly making their way 
over the mountains. These pioneers were hardy and brave, 
facing the dangers of wild beasts and more savage men. 
Wherever the woodman came, he cut away with his axe a 
little clearing in the forest to let in the sunlight, and with 
the trees that he felled he built a log cabin — his first home 
in the wilderness. 

Among the early settlers of the Carolinas, there was a 
strong Scotch-Irish element, like that which peopled West- 
ern Pennsylvania. These men were not outcasts from the 
Old Country: they left it because it was not worthy to re- 
tain them. Some of them had fought at the siege of Lon- 
donderry, and all were imbued with the ardor of religious 
liberty, and, like the Pilgrim Fathers, sought a New World 
that they might have freedom to worslii]^ God. The sons 
of these men who emigrated to Tennessee were not rene- 
gades from society — adventurers seeking to escape from the 
restraints of civilization. Wherever they came they car- 
ried the Ark ot God with them. The smoke which might 
have been seen in those days far off on a mountain side, 
curling upward in the morning air, was but an emblem 
of the incense of prayer which went up from the dwellers 
beneath. A God-fearing family in the wilderness was the 
seed-corn of civilization: for where the log cabin had been 
built, and a few settlers gathered round, the log school- 



GOD BLESS THE OLD COMMONWEALTH! 133 

house followed, and soon the log meeting-house nestled at 
their side, and these were the elements of a Christian com- 
munity. Such men were worthy to be the founders of a 
State — of a great, free. Christian Commonwealth. 

The impress of those noble fathers is still seen in their 
children to the third and fourth generation. The little 
settlement in the woods has grown into a village, and the 
village perhaps into a city; and with the increase of popula- 
tion and material wealth, there has been a corresponding 
growth of institutions of education and religion. The log 
school-house has been the germ of the Common-School 
system — which extends its blessing, not only to every large 
town, but to every village and hamlet — as well as of the 
sjilendid institutions which crown the hill-toj^s round the 
city of Kashville; while the log meeting-house has been the 
germ of hundreds of churches, whose spires pointing to 
heaven show the religious character of the people. 

But my pen is running away with me, and I must stop. 
While I have been " a-thinking " after this sort, our train 
has been running swiftly to the North, and as we come to 
the border of Kentucky, I turn to the State we leave behind, 
and, applying to her the words with which the Governor 
of Massachusetts always ended his Thanksgiving Proclama- 
tion, I say, " God bless the Commonwealth of Tennessee!'^ 



XII. 

ON THE BANKS OF THE OHIO — THE LOUISVILLE AKD NASH- 
VILLE KAILROAD — HOW RAILROADS BIND THE COUN- 
TRY TOGETHER — RESPONSE OF CONFEDERATES TO UNION 
SENTIMENTS — THE CITY OF LOUISVILLE — THE OLD 
KENTUCKY HOME — A NOBLE MATRON AND HER SONS 
— "A KENTUCKIAN KNEELS TO NONE BUT HIS GOD/' 

A VISIT to the South ends when tlie traveller, on his 
return, reaches the banks of the Ohio — the old border-line 
between the Free and the Slave States. Here then we have 
come to the winding up of our story, in which we shall 
pay our res2:>ects to Kentucky, as we have paid them to 
Tennessee. 

When we walked u]) the steps and into the broad hall of 
the Gait House in Louisville, we found ourselves in as com- 
fortable a Hotel as one needs to find in any city of the land, 
North or South. Here, as everywhere that we had been, 
we had a fresh taste of Southern hospitality. As usual, it 
was all Mr. Inman^s doing. Nobody knew us, but many 
knew him, and for his sake we were treated as "of the 
family. '' He is connected with Louisville in a business 
way. This city is the head-quarters of one of the great rail- 
way systems of the United States, which takes its name 
from the two cities of Louisville and Nashville, which it 
was first formed to connect, but which is no longer limited 
to the distance between them, but reaches out a hand to its 
sister city on the Ohio, Cincinnati; and another to St. 
Louis, on the Mississijopi ; and through these points (to- 
gether with its own center, Louisville) connects with 
twenty-two trunk lines to the East; while beyond St. Louis, 

(134) 



LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD. 135 

it reaches away to Kansas City on the extreme border of 
Missouri. But its chief development has been in the South- 
west, in which direction it extends to New Orleans, and has 
leased other roads which it did not own, that it might bring 
them all under one control, until, in the flowery language 
of a Southern eulogist, * ' it stretches its Briarean arms 
over thirteen States, and joins with bands of steel the 
waters of the Lakes to the orange groves of the Gulf. ^^ 
Of this comj^any, Mr. Inman and Mr. Rutter are Directors; 
and lience the President and those of the Directors who live 
in Louisville, were early on hand to show us attentions, 
which included a luncheon at the Pendennis Club. As 
this was a company of business men, it was hardly to be ex- 
pected that there would be any other talking than in the 
way of conversation, and I thought I should escaj^e this 
time; but as we were about to rise from the table, there 
came round a note written in " that fine Eoman hand '' 
with which I had become so familiar, saying that ' ' a few 
remarks would be in order," and that I must remember 
that this was a gathering of railroad men, and whatever 
was said should be in view of that fact. This was not only 
setting me going again, but switching me oS on a new 
track. 

Having a subject thus given me, I made such response 
as I could, saying (what was not mere compliment, but 
sincere conviction) that railroads are the pioneers of civiliza- 
tion; that they do more for the development of a country 
than almost any other single agency. The growth of our 
country, great as it might still have been from other 
causes, had been immensely accelerated by the stimulus of 
these national roads, which plowed up the prairies, and 
cut their way through the forest, penetrating the wilder- 
ness, ^' where no man was,'^ and there opened new regions 
for the habitations of men. 

This good effect of railroads was entirely independent of 



136 WHAT IIAILKOADS DO FOR THE COUNTRY. 

the motives of the builders. Such enterprises were not set 
on foot as a work of benevolence, but as a matter of 
business, as men engage in any other lawful occupation. 
But no matter for that. Even though their projectors 
might have been animated only by sordid and selfish 
motives, they '' builded better than they knew,' ^ and in 
the end the country at large reaped the benefit of the 
great works which they completed. The men jiassed 
away, but the works remained to be the inheritance of 
after generations. 

In our country railroads had a political as well as com- 
mercial value. They, and they only, could prevent our 
Union of States from becoming unwieldy the larger it grew, 
and drop2)ing aj^art by the fact of its enormous extension. 
That would have been our greatest danger, had not these 
roads, keeping pace with the increase of jDOpulation, or a 
little in advance of it, reached out to each new State and 
Territory, connecting it at once with the seat of govern- 
ment, and with the long-settled and populous States, and 
so bound all parts of the country together. Thus the 
Union had grown, not from without, but from within; not 
suddenly and violently by acquisitions of new territory, but 
by the safe process of gradual increase, till it had crossed 
the continent, stretching its mighty expanse from the broad 
Atlantic to the broader Pacific. 

Nor was this all that was to be said for railroads and 
their builders. What they had done for our country, they 
would do for other countries. I had seen what English 
railroads had done in India: Russian railroads were now 
penetrating Central Asia: and wherever they came, they 
would prove agencies of civilization. The great men of 
modern times were not soldiers, but engineers; not the 
captains of armies, but the captains of industry; who were 
reconstructing the face of the earth; by whose gigantic 
labors " the valleys were exalted and the hills were made 



KESPONSE TO UNION^ SENTIMENTS. 137 

low/' to the end, as I fully believed, of " casting np *a high- 
way for the coming of the Lord. ' ' 

Having run into this moral strain, I could not but say 
one word (as it was the last I could say in the South) of 
the Country that was so dear to us all — dearer than ever by 
the sufferings through which she had passed ; lately torn 
asunder by civil war, but now at last happily reunited, 
and bound together, not only with bands of iron, but by 
millions of loyal and loving hearts; and which we devoutly 
prayed might remain forever " one and inseparable.^^ 

This I said in the impulse of the moment, because it was 
in my heart, hardly thinking whom I addressed. Had I 
known, I might have hesitated, for fear of giving offence: 
for here, as at New Orleans, I was among Confederates. 
Before me sat General Basil Duke, the brother-in-law of 
the noted chief, John Morgan, with whom he made the 
famous raid into Ohio, where he was captured and im- 
prisoned at Columbus six months! Such a man might not 
relish allusions to the jiast, yet I had hardly sat down be- 
fore he rushed up to me with open arms, and seemed ready 
to embrace me. If he had done so, I should have returned 
it with a heartiness that would have satisiSed the most 
warm-blooded Kentuckian. Others came up, saying, " I 
want to take your hand,^^ and ** If men like you would 
come down South, they would do a world of good. " I 
hope my readers will not think me so foolish as to repeat 
these words because of the compliment to myself. I re- 
peat them only to show the temper of the South: that the 
old bitterness is wearing away, and that Southern men are 
quick to respond to patriotic sentiments. Of course, if a 
Northern man goes South and is rude and offensive, he 
"will meet, as he deserves, sharp rebuffs. But a little tact 
and common sense, combined with genuine good feeling, 
will go far to remove irritation, and smooth the way, not 
only to " reconciliation;,^' but to a warmer love to each 



138 THE CITY OF LOUISVILLE. 

other than ever before, and to the great country to which 
they as well as we belong. 

But enough of personalities. The carriages are at the 
door, and for the next two or three hours we are driving 
about the city. How beautiful it is, with its wide streets 
and long avenues, lined with handsome residences! They 
have not yet learned the New York style of architecture 
which j^iles story upon story, mounting up to sky-parlors, 
which can only be reached by elevators! AYhy should they, 
so long as they have room to spread out nearer the warm 
breast of mother earth? Almost universally the better 
houses stand apart, each in its plot of ground, with light 
and air on every side; while in many cases the open lawns 
bloom with flowers, and doors and windows are wreathed 
with clustering vines. What magnificence of architecture 
can equal this natural beauty? In riding about Louisville, 
I felt the same sort of pleasure as in our most beautiful 
New England cities, such, for example, as New Haven and 
Hartford, and Springfield, Mass. These homes, so beau- 
tiful without and so hajijoy within, are a nation^s security. 
We may have strikes in cities, with scenes of confusion and 
disorder; but that nation is safe which is " fast-anchored " 
by millions of ha2:)py homes. 

Of public institutions, Louisville has its full share. It 
was my good fortune to be in the carriage with an excellent 
Presbyterian elder, who pointed out to me the fine school 
buildings, with hospitals and asylums, which show that 
the work of charity is not forgotten by the warm Southern 
heart. 

If we say tliis of the city, what shall we say of the State 
and the people? Kentucky is the daughter of Virginia, 
and a proud mother makes a proud daughter. Meet Ken- 
tuckians where you will, at home or abroad, you find them 
proud of their State. They are eloquent of its natural 
beauty and fertility, and — if they do not all go to the ex- 



^^THE OLD KENTUCKY HOME." 139' 

tent of the negro 2:>reaclier, who could find no description 
of heavfen so satisfactory to his imagination as that " it was 
a Kentucky kind of a place/^ yet — should there be found 
any word of Scripture to warrant a Biblical argument, I 
verily believe that their theologians would enter the field 
to prove that the original Paradise created for man was 
in the Blue Grass Eegion of Kentucky! That region is 
indeed a Paradise now — a Paradise '^ after the fall." The 
eastern portion of the State, which borders on the Ohio, 
and of which Lexington is the center, is a land as beau- 
tiful as can be found beneath the sun. The soil is of great 
fertility, and the earth yields her increase in abundance for 
the wants of man. The jDOSsessors have grown rich, as 
they show, not only by their broad acres and fat cattle and 
blooded horses, but by their stately mansions, surrounded 
by wide lawns and shaded by magnificent trees. 

As we come closer to a people, and get a nearer view of 
them by seeing their home-life, it may help us in our jDres- 
ent study to introduce a quiet domestic scene. 

Some years ago a picture was exliibited in New York, 
painted by my dear friend, Eastman Johnson, who is so 
justly famous for his *' interiors,'^ entitled *' The Old Ken- 
tucky Home. " But it was only j)art of a home, and the 
poorest part, though not perhaps the least joyous. In the 
rear of an old mansion were the negro quarters, against 
which rested a ^ Mean- to ^^ which showed signs of the 
ravages of time. The roof had fallen in, and the side had 
fallen out; but this uncovered side disclosed a fire-place that 
suggested the *' hoe-cake baking," which once made that 
old kitchen a scene of daily festivity, and caused the black 
faces to shine as they gleamed in the fire-light. In front of 
this " chimney-piece " was a group which might well have 
made a study for a painter. An old darkey, leaning back 
in his seat, was playing on a banjo, while the mistress of 
his affections was seated at his feet, and the pickaninnies 



140 **^THE OLD KENTUCKY HOME/^ 

were scattered arouiKl. A negro mother, with her baby in 
her arms, leaned out of an upper window to catch tlie en- 
trancing melody, or perhajis to keep watch of a young man 
and maiden who were making love in a corner. The only 
white faces that appeared were those of two ladies of the 
family, who peeped out of a garden door, and smiled with 
delight at the scene. It was a picture of the old plantation 
days, when these careless, happy creatures, at the first 
touch of the banjo, would go off into sj^asms of delight, 
would sing a song or dance a jig, while masters and mis- 
tresses looked on indulgently at the irrepressible gayety of 
the simple African race. It was a pretty way to suggest 
the relation of kindliness and sympathy which united the 
two classes together: " the high '' made hajojDy by seeing 
the happiness of " the humble.^" 

This gives us a j^icture of master and servant which is 
not according to our usual idea of slavery, but which had 
its counterpart in thousands of Southern homes. The 
wrong of slavery was in the 2^oioer which it gave to the 
owner, and which, if he were a hard master, permitted him 
to carry it to the extreme of cruelty. But it would be a 
mistake to sujoj^ose that this 2^0 wer was always abused. 
On the contrary, masters and mistresses often felt a great 
affection and tenderness for those of the subject race with 
whom they had been brought up from childhood, and 
wdiose fate was so closely bound up with their own; and 
cases were not wanting in which they tried to protect these 
helpless creatures, even when they were themselves over- 
whelmed with disaster. One of this kind has recently come 
to my knowledge. 

More than half a century ago there lived in Kentucky a 
lady in whom were united several honored names — those of 
her father and grandfather, both distinguished in the early 
history of the State, and that of her husband, a brother of 
John J. Crittenden, who was second in popular favor only 



A KOBLE MATROK AKD HER SOKS. 141 

to Henry Clay. Her husband died in the prime of man- 
hood, leaving his young widow with an insolvent estate and 
five children. Compelled thus early in life to face a hard 
future, her anxiety, next to that for her own children, was 
for her servants, who were liable to be seized by the sheriif 
and sold, to be taken South to the jjlantations of the Lower 
Mississijjpi. In such a crisis this brave woman stood be- 
tween them and the law as their protector. She asked only 
that she might be allowed the management of a factory 
belonging to the estate, called a ' ' rope-walk, '^ that made 
a coarse cloth for the baling of cotton, which was conceded 
to her, and which she conducted with such diligence and 
23rudence, like the woman in the Proverbs, " rising early 
in the morning and putting her hands to the distaff,"^ that 
in three years she had earned enough to redeem her serv- 
auts from the fate that was impending over them. 
'^And,"' said my informant, '"forty years after I saw 
those very negroes, then gray-headed men, lift up tenderly 
the coflin that contained the body of their old mistress (to 
whom, as they were free, they were bound by no allegiance 
but that of love and gratitude), and with streaming eyes 
carry her to her grave. ^^ 

This touching story tempts me to go a step further, and 
to say that this noble woman was the mother of a race of 
brave men, one of whom lately ruled that most turbulent 
element in our country, the Mormons of Utah, in which 
trying and difficult position he showed a firmness and 
courage worthy of such a mother. In a late New York 
paper I find the following notice of mother and son : 

*' The mother of ex-Gov. Murray of Utah was a remarka- 
ble woman. Her first husband was the brother of the 
noble and eloquent John J. Crittenden, and one of her sons 
was the recent Governor of Missouri. When I first saw 
Mrs. Murray, it was in her own beautiful Kentucky home 
on the Ohio river. I think I never saw a more magnificent- 



142 "KKEELING TO NOKE BUT GOD!^^ 

i 

looking couple than Col. and Mrs. Murray. The latter was 
tall and stately, almost statuesque in her beauty. She was 
a veritable grancle dame, but her dignity was temi3ered 
with the sweetest gentleness. She was, moreover, a wom- 
an of great intellect and character. Another son by her 
first marriage was a brilliant young fellow, brave and 
dashing as a knight of old, who sacrificed himself years ago 
on a filibustering ex23edition to Cuba, that maelstrom that 
swallowed up so many bright and unselfish, but misguided 
souls of the Southern chivalry. Young Crittenden, in 
company with other leaders of the expedition, was captured 
and sentenced to death. One by one, at sunrise, his com- 
rades stood before a line of Cuban rifles, and at the order 
knelt, and received a volley in their ill-fated breasts. 
When Crittenden^s turn came, he refused to kneel, saying: 
' A Kentuckian kneels to none but his God,^ and despite 
threats, oaths, and orders, he received the fatal shots erect 
and motionless. Years ago the favorite song in drawing- 
rooms throughout Kentucky and the South was a pathetic 
ballad founded on these last words, and bearing on the 
title-page a picture of this dauntless young spirit. Mrs. 
Murray was revered and honored by all who knew her. " 

The sons of such a mother could not but be brave. They 
have shown their courage in most difficult circumstances. 
Gov. Crittenden of Missouri had a peculiar work to per- 
form. The western part of that State was infested with 
gangs of robbers, who, secreting themselves in the darkest 
and loneliest places of the forest, lay in wait for railway 
trains, which they brought to a halt by obstructions on the 
track, and then shot the engineers, and " went through " 
the passengers in the most apjDroved style of high\vaymen. 
Such was the terror inspired by these frequent raids, that 
many travellers avoided the State. And yet it was a most 
difficult task to seize, convict, and punish the robbers. 
Hoiu difficult we may judge by remembering how many 



THE WORK DONE BY 'TWO GOYERKORS. 143 

years it took the Italian Government to put down brigand- 
age in Calabria and Sicily. The attempt was connected 
with great personal dangers. The Governor was in con- 
stant receipt of threats of assassination. But he never 
hesitated a moment, and executed his trust so effectively 
that to-ciay Missouri has peace and quietness in all her bor- 
ders. 

A still more difficult task was that in Utah, as the Mor- 
mons were numbered by tens of thousands. But Gov. 
Murray had had a training in w^ar. He was a gallant officer 
in the Union army, and after Kilpatrick was wounded had 
command of the cavalry in Sherman's March to the Sea. 
When he went to Utah, people found that they had no 
child to deal with, no weak Governor who could be either 
frightened or fooled. While he did them no injustice, he 
held the reins with a firm hand. They gnashed their teeth 
at him, but at the same time " walked softly " before him. 
The best testimony to the wisdom and vigor of his ad- 
ministration, was the universal regret of the Gentiles at his 
retirement. Such sons are living witnesses to the great 
qualities of her whose blood flows in their veins— one who 
was more than a Roman matron, an American mother. 



XIII. 

KENTUCKIAKS — THEIR FAULTS— A HOT TEMPER IK THE 
BLOOD — FAMILY PEUDS — KEKTUCKY CHRISTIANS AKD 
KENTUCKY MINISTERS — THESE FAULTS REDEEMED BY 
SPLENDID VIRTUES — A PEOPLE BRAVE, GENEROUS, AND 
HOSPITABLE — FAREWELL TO THE SOUTH. 

Some of my friends who profess to enjoy reading what 
I write still have a quiet smile now and then at my enthu- 
siasms. They tell me that I find good in every country and 
in every people; that, as I see beauty in the sands of the 
desert, so I find something to admire and to love in the 
most unattractive specimens of humanity. For example, 
they say: " Why do you go crazy about those Kentuckians? 
Don^t you know that they iire a pugnacious and combative 
• race, given to hatreds and revenges, and always fighting 
with somebody? If they have no outside enemies to fight, 
they fight with one another. They fly in a passion for the 
most trifling cause, and then out comes a horsewhip or a 
pistol or a bowie-knife! You can not take up a newspaper 
without seeing a story of a street-fight in a town in Ken- 
tucky. Somebody has had ' a difficulty ' with somebody 
else, and one or the other has been shot down in cold blood. 
Nor are these affrays confined to individuals; they pass 
from a man to his family; brothers and sons take up the 
quarrel, till a whole circle of kindred is involved, and 
not unfrequently it becomes an hereditary feud, that passes 
down from generation to generation. A strange peoj)le 
indeed to be held uj) as the highest type of American 
chivalry!" 

Of the atrocity of these thino-s, it is impossible to speak 



A FIERY TEMPER — FAMILY FEUDS. 145 

in too severe condemnation. I make no apology for 
them, for apology there is none. They are deeds that be- 
long only to savages, and not to civilized men. But they 
are not every-day occurrences; nor are they common to the 
whole population. If inquired into, they will be found to 
be most frequent among gamblers and sporting men, by 
whom it would be very unjust to judge a whole State. 
While these ornaments of society amuse themselves now 
and then by shooting each other, the mass of the people go 
about their business, leading quiet and peaceable lives in 
all godliness and honesty. 

The feuds between families, which we are accustomed to 
impute to Kentucky, as a stain upon her fair name, should 
rather be imputed to the whole South. A clergyman who 
was born in Kentucky, but who has passed the greater part 
of his life still further South, tells me that he has known 
similar feuds in Mississij^jDi and in Louisiana — on the Red 
River, and in the beautiful Teche country. But that 
does not make them any better. The '' Vendetta," which 
in Sicily and Corsica is looked upon as a relic of pure 
savagery, surviving in the midst of European civilization, is 
not changed in character when transferred to American soil. 

But however much of this spirit may be due to natural 
temperament, it has been intensified by several causes. I 
am sorry to say that Kentucky is the great whiskey-produc- 
ing State in the Union. When I strolled out of the Gait 
House to take my first walk in Louisville, it seemed to me, 
by the number of warehouses devoted to the storage of 
whiskey, that it must be the principal product of Ken- 
tucky. The famous ^' Bourbon Whiskey '' takes its name 
from Bourbon county, which lies in the very heart of the 
Blue Grass region. With such a river of fire running 
through the State, what can be expected of a people whose 
hot blood only needs this added stimulant to be inflamed 
beyond control? 



146 DUELLING A RELIC OF SLAVERY. 

But he who would trace the genesis of the fighting tem- 
joer of Kentucky and of the South, must bring into the fore- 
ground another potent cause. This quick resentment and 
this habit of violence, showing itself in fights and feuds, 
Corsican ^'endetta and all, is the heir-loom of Slavery — one 
of the natural products of irresponsible power. Whoever 
has given into his hand absolute mastery over other human 
beings, must needs have extraordinary self-control not to 
become a tyrant on a small scale, or a large scale, as the 
case may be. He who from a boy has been approached 
with servility by inferiors, does not bear contradiction with 
composure even from equals. A slight irritation will send 
the blood to his heart, and the quick answer to his lips. 
Added to this in the old days was the temptation of an idle 
life. When all menial labor was performed by slaves, the 
young " men of family " had little to do but to keep up 
the reputation of gentlemen; and this was gained in no way 
so readily as by the exhibition of courage. One must be 
tenacious of points of honor, and be prepared to resent all 
real or imagined injuries. Not unfrequently a young 
" blood '^ picked a quarrel, that he might show his courage 
in fighting a duel. To have fought and *' killed his man ^^ 
gave him a certain reputation. But these things are far 
less frequent than they once were. A duel is now a rare 
occurrence. A relic of barbarism, it is passing away with 
the advance of civilization. And so of other forms of vio- 
lence, which were the natural outgrowth of Slavery: now 
that Slavery is gone, they can not long survive. As Slavery 
was the brood-mother of many forms of cruelty, now that 
the old witch-hag that gave them birth is dead, it is fit that 
her ill-shapen offspring should die and be buried in the 
same dishonored grave. 

But with all my attempts to explain, if not to explain 
aiuay, the belligerent temjDcr of the Kentuckians, I am 
afraid I shall have to admit that it is partly in the blood. 



COMBATIVENESS IN" THE BLOOD. 147 

There is no denying that they are a people of ardent tem- 
perament^ in which they resemble the Southern peoples of 
Europe, the Spaniards and Italians, rather than the colder 
races of the North. Such a peojDle will sometimes enter 
into combat for the mere pleasure of the excitement — the 
gauclium certaminis — the opportunity it gives for the exer- 
cise of courage and of strength; and will even welcome a 
conflict that calls them to measure their powers with a 
worthy foe. 

If we are disposed to condemn this severely, we should 
remember that the same fiery temjoer has sometimes divided 
the Church, and alienated Christian men. Keligion does 
not change wholly a man's nature; it only sets it working 
in a new direction. I will not say that the average Ken- 
tuckian is of such a high-strung spirit that it takes more 
grace to convert him than other men; but even Divine 
grace conforms to the peculiar nature of the individual. 
Though he be converted, and become a Christian, he is a 
Kentucky Christian, and his spirit is sometimes so hot 
within him that it must overflow. If it can not show itself 
on the field of battle or the field of honor, it will find vent 
in politics, at the j)olls or in the courts, or even in the 
churches. 

Nay, ministers of the Gospel sometimes show themselves 
unrelenting and unforgiving. Not long since the grave 
closed over two men who had no superiors in the Church; 
both sound in the faith — no hickory-tree in all the forests 
of Kentucky was sounder; both learned and eloquent; yet 
who somehow could not " con sorf together, and whose 
peculiar regard for each other is one of the traditions of the 
State. We refer to this, not to magnify an unhappy differ- 
ence, but to show how the grace of God may live {and burn) 
in such warrior-breasts. But time is the gentle healer of 
all wounds, or at least it covers them with oblivion. Rob- 
ert Breckinridge and Stuart Robinson have gone to the 



148 FAULTS REDEEMED BY SPLENDID VIRTUES. 

grave; the grass grows green over the places where they 
sleep; and as we think of them now, it is not of the causes 
which divided them, but that in this at least they were one 
— as lion-hearted champions for the faith of the Gospel. 

A people may sometimes be wiser than their teachers, 
taking heed to avoid their errors, as well as to imitate their 
virtues. But even though Kentuckians may put away all 
hatred and malice, they will not sink down into being tame 
and spiritless. They never were, and never will be, a meek 
and lamb-like race. Indeed I should be sorry to think that 
they could ever lose their ancient spirit, though they may 
exercise it in new fields — fields more worthy of their ambi- 
tion. They will always be, more or less, a fighting people; 
and to this the sternest moralists must be a little indulgent. 
It will never do in this latitude to count a mild degree of 
combativeness an unpardonable sin, for *' who then can be 
saved?'' All that the wisest can do is to guide what they 
can not wholly repress. If they have to deal with a people 
who are excitable, and ready to start at the tap of the 
drum, they must be content to turn their heads the right 
way; so that if they must fight, they will fight on the right 
side. 

If in this picture I have seemed to make the colors rather 
dark, such a background will only set in brighter relief the 
lights that are thrown upon it. The faults of the Ken- 
tuckian, be they great or small, are of the open kind, that 
do not shun the light of day, instead of the mean and low 
that hide in darkness. His virtues and his vices, wide apart 
as they are, are yet fed by the same abounding life that is 
in him. The spirit that makes him quick to resent a wrong, 
makes him equally quick to recognize- a kindness. Thus 
the good and the bad alike are far more demonstrative be- 
cause of his warm, impulsive nature. He is a hot-blooded 
creature, and whatever he does, he does with all the inten- 
sity of his being: he loves and he hates; he is a warm 



A KACE OF BKAVE MEN. 149 

friend and a bitter enemy. Such a man we can love^ not 
in spite of his faults, but we might almost say because of 
them, as they are the manifestations of a frank, manly, 
and generous sj)irit. It is easier to form attachments to a 
people who have warm blood, even if they do quarrel with 
us once in a while, than to make friends with those who 
are cold as icebergs, whose sluggish blood creeps slowly 
through their veins. Among such a people will be found 
men and women after the pattern of the family to which 
I have referred. A race, capable of producing such speci- 
mens of manhood and womanhood, is not a common 
race. The people have a character of their own, which is 
as marked as the geography of the State. Their very phys- 
ique is a striking one. It is often observed that they are 
above tlie average height; that they are tall, well formed, 
and of commanding presence. This uncommon stature has 
been ascribed to the fact that Kentucky is a limestone 
country. It is said that the lime in " the springs which 
run among the hills, ^'' passes into the blood of men, and 
makes their bones of iron. In support of this theory, it is 
said that to the same cause in the soil is owing the mar- 
vellous fertility of the Blue Grass region, which produces 
other species of animated nature of the same superior qual- 
ity; that it ^' grows " splendid horses and cattle, as well as 
men of uncommon vigor. Whatever be the cause, the fact 
is apparent to every observer that the Kentuckians are a 
stalwart race. 

From this physique it comes in part that they are a 
race of brave men — in part, I say, for courage is not 
wholly a physical trait, but results from a combination 
of the physical with the moral, bodily strength being united 
with force of character. It is no great merit for a Kentuck- 
ian to be brave, for we can not think of him as anything 
else. Courage is with him a tradition and an inheritance. 
His fathers were brave before him, from the time when 



150 KENTUCKY IN THE WAR. 

Daniel Boone crossed the mountains with his rifle on his 
shoulder. From a boy he is trained to ride a horse and to 
handle a gun, and hence he takes naturally to military pur- 
suits, iuto which he enters with his accustomed ardor. In 
the late war Kentuckians fought on both sides; yet wher- 
ever they fought, they fought bravely. The position of the 
State was one of extreme difficulty. Lying on the border 
between the North and the South, she was opposed to dis- 
union, and wholly disapproved of the action of the hot- 
heads of South Carolina. But when the crisis came, many 
of those who were unfavorable to secession, still could not 
take up arms against their brethren. A chivalrous feeling 
led them to take part with the weaker side; and so the peo- 
ple divided — some going one way, and some another. The 
liue was drawn through cities and villages, severing com- 
munities and churches, and even families, literally setting 
brother against brother. In this violence of feeling, the 
State was not only drawn apart, but we might almost say, 
was " drawn and quartered.^' But the bravest fighters are 
often the quickest to be reconciled when the contest is over. 
Those who have been foremost in the day of battle are 
most prompt to recognize the fate of war, and to lay down 
their hatreds when they lay down their arms. To-day this 
State is as loyal as Massachusetts, and if a foreign war 
were to come, I believe the country would have no braver 
defenders than the Confederate soldiers of Kentucky. 

It is not necessary to enlarge the catalogue of virtues. It 
is enough to say that the Kentuckian is a man built on a 
large pattern, with a frame made alike for action and for 
endurance. He stands erect, and carries himself with a 
manly air in his open face and direct look, as of one who 
has his place in the world — a place of which he need not be 
ashamed. His moral qualities partake of his physical: as 
he is broad-breasted, so he is large-hearted — open, frank, 
generous; a man to be respected, and to be feared by any- 



FAEEWELL TO THE SOUTH. 151 

body who would wrong him; but whose cordial manners 
and abounding hospitality win the heart of the stranger 
within his gates. He has his faults, but who would remem- 
ber faults which are redeemed by such splendid virtues? 
Nor is this high jDraise to be given to men only, for if they 
are distinguished for courage, no less are their sisters for 
beauty and goodness; so that to Kentucky may be applied 
the proud boast on the monument of a noble house in 
Westminster Abbey, that " all her sons are brave, and all 
her daughters virtuous. ' ' 

Such were the thoughts that lingered withm me as we 
left Louisville at evening, and fled away in the stillness of 
the night. Sitting at the window, and looking out at the 
villages through which we passed, and watching the lights 
that twinkled by hundreds of firesides (as on the night 
that we began our journey) the same pictures rose to the 
fancy of the scenes within: of the groujDS around the 
family table, where fathers and niothers looked proudly 
into the faces of their happy children! "With such a vision 
fading on the sight, my heart went out in one last word, 
God bless the Old Kentucky Home! 

And now, as we are about to cross the border, I turn a 
lingering look to the beautiful South-land where we have 
received so much kindness, and invoke upon her the Ori- 
ental benediction of " Peace !'^ — the one word which com- 
prises all earthly good. Never again can we feel that we 
are strangers here. Kindred in blood, we are brothers in 
heart; and to the South, as fervently as to the North, do I 
say: Peace be within your walls and prosperity within your 
palaces! Peace on yowr mountains and your valleys, and 
in all your happy homes! Good-night! 



FIVE VOLUMES OF TRAVEL. 

BY BEV. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D. 

Published hy Charles Scrihier's Sons, New York. 

BOUND THE WORLD. 

In Two Volumes (Fifteenth Edition). 

'< Two as interestiii^ and valuable Books of Travel as have been 
published in this Country."— New Yobk Expbess. 



I.— FROM THE LAKES OF KILLABNET 

TO THE GOLDEN HOItN. 

One volume, Crown 8vo. Price, $2.00. 

from, tlie liondon Times. 

"As we all know, it is not necessary for a man to discover a 
new country in order to write an interesting book of travel. He 
may traverse the most beaten track in Europe, and yet if he can 
describe what he has seen with freshness and originality, he will 
succeed in engaging our -attention. We do not go far with Dr. 
Field before finding out that he is a traveller of this sort." And 
so on for a column and a half, criticising here and there, but 
praising warmly ; and ending, "Thus we take leave of a writer 
who has produced so interesting and meritorious a book that we 
are sorry we cannot coincide with all his conclusions." 

From tlie New York Tribune. 

"Few recent travellers combine so many qualities that are 
adapted to command the interest and sympathy of the public. 
While he indulges, to its fullest extent, the characteristic Ameri- 
can curiosity with regard to foreign lands, insisting on seeing 
every object of interest with his own eyes, shrinking from no 
peril or difficulty in pursuit of information — climbing mountains, 
descending mines, exploring pyramids, with no sense of satiety 
or weariness — he has also made a faithful study of the highest 
authorities on the different subjects of his narrative, thus giving 
solidity and depth to his descriptions, without sacrificing their 
facility or grace." 

From the late William Adams, D.D., IiL.D. 

"... They are the best [Sketches of Travel] of the kind ever 
written, and have done, and will do, the writer boundless credit." 



ROUND THE WOULD, 

Tolwme 11,— FR03I EGYPT TO tJAPA^N, (Price $2.00.) 



From R. D. Hitclicocic, O.D., L.Ii.D., President of tlie 
Union Theological Seminary, New York:. 

" In this second volume, Dr. Field, I think, has surpassed 
himself in the first, and this is saying a good deal. In both vol- 
umes the editorial instinct and habit are conspicuous. Dr. Prime 
has said that an editor should have six senses, the sixth being a 
' sense of the interesting' Dr. Field has this to perfection." 
From the New York Observer. 

"The present volume comprises by far the most novel, ro- 
mantic, and interesting part of the Journey [Eound the World], 
and the story of it is told and the scenes are painted by the hand 

of a master." 

From tlie Ne^v York Herald. 

" It would be impossible by extracts to convey an adequate 
idea of the abundance or picturesque freshness of these sketches 
of travel, without copying a large part of the book." 

From Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., tl^.D. 

" It is indeed a charming book — full of fresh information, pic- 
turesque description, and thoughtful studies of men, countries, 
and civilizations." 

From Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody, late Flditor of tbe 
JVortb. American Revietv. 

" I have never, within anything like the same space, seen so 
much said of Egypt, or so wisely or so well. Much as I have 
read about Egypt — many volumes indeed — I have found some of 
these descriptions more graphic, more realistic, than I have ever 
met, or expect to meet, elsewhere." 

By Charles Dudley Warner, in the Hartford Courant. 

" It is thoroughly entertaining; the reader's interest is never 
allowed to flag. The author carries us forward from land to land 
with uncommon vivacity, enlivens the way with a good humor, 
a careful observation, and treats all people with a refreshing lib- 
erality." 

From the New^ark Advertiser. 

*' *From the Lakes of Killabney to the Golden Hokn,' 
and ' Fbom Egypt to Japan,' are justly considered as among the 
best iqapdern Tt>ooks of travel." 



OiV^ THE DESERT. 

1 vol., Crown 8vo. Price, $2.00. 



in Account of a Journey in the track of the Israelites alon^ the 
Red Sea, amon^ the Peaks of Sinai, through the Desert of the 
Wandermg, and up to the Promised Land. 



From. Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, of Liondon. 

"Wonderful! Subject, the Desert; discourse, a book of the 
first order. ... It would be difficult to meet with a more lively 
and instructive work. Surely the monks of Sinai, the Bedaween 
and their camels, and all the other appurtenances of the Great 
and Terrible Wilderness, are now done— done to a turn, done to 
the very utmost. Our traveller used all his eyes, and he seems 
to have possessed hidden optics in the back of his head and the 
heels of his boots. He gathers more from the Desert than most 
men would have gleaned in the Gardens of Solomon. This ad- 
mirable work wall enjoy a wide popularity, and become a standard 
book of reference." 

From Arctideacon Farrar, 'W'estminster Abbey. 

"I found it so interesting, that I could not lay it down till I 
had finished it." 

From Noali Swayne, lili.D., late Justice of tlie Supreme Court 
of tlie United. States. 

"Although I had been over the same ground before with 
Dean Stanley and others, I find the work extremely interesting." 

From Prof. W. G. T. Sliedd, D.D. 

" I see the Desert and the mountains, and the Arabs, and the 
camels, and all the strange scenery, without the toil, heat, and 
danger." 

From Rev. T. AV. Cliambers, D.D., of Nevr York, who made tbe 
Journey across tlie Desert to Mount Sinai in 1874:. 

" The reader will get a better idea of the real characteristics 
of the Sinaitic Desert and its inhabitants, from these pages, than 
from any other accessible volume. Those who have been over 
the ground will bear witness to the author's literal accuracy." 

From the New Yorlc Herald. 

"There is not an uninteresting chapter in the book. It is 
entertaining throughout. It depicts men and countries in a pic- 
turesque and thoughtful manner, and is likely to meet with a& 
much favor as the author's former capital books Qf trr^vel." 



THE GREEK ISLANDS 

AJSrn TURKEY AFTER TILE WAR. 

1 vol., 12mo, with Maps and Illustrations, $1.50. 



From. Rev. Dr. Waslibarn, President of Robert College, 
Constantinople. 

" I have' read it with the greatest interest, and with constant 
admiration of the accuracy of its statements." 

From, the Morning Journal (New Ifork). 

" More fascinating than nine-tenths of the novels published 
during the past year, is Dr. Henry M. Field's 'The Greek 
Islands and Turkey after the War.' It is a modern Childe 
Harold Pilgrimage, purified and ennobled — a panorama of lovely 
scenes, rendered sacred by apostolic memories, and ever interest- 
ing through historical and poetical associations. 

From th.e Critic (Ne^r York). 

" We know of no writer on travel over beaten paths wlio 
excels Dr. Field. We do not place him second to Miss Bird or 
De Amicis. These in their way may be more brilliant, higher- 
colored, piquant ; but they are less trustworthy, and have not 

' The years that bring the philosophic mind.' 
Our American editor-author is more sunny, meditative, accu- 
rate, sympathetic, and knows at a glance what is interesting. 
He is never tedious. While the vessel of his thought brims with 
quotable felicities of expression, and is beaded with wit and 
fancy, it is rich with the vintage of philosophic culture. After an 
ordinary lifetime spent in studying men and events, and training 
his pen to make pictures and write histories in paragraphs, this 
son of America sallies forth from his sanctum. He first steams 
round the globe, and shakes out of his quill a pair of literary 
twins that have entered thoir — we know not what thousandth. 
Then perhaps with a mild twinge of shame at going so fast, he 
rambles "On the Desert" and "Among the HoiiY Hills "; 
and now, just when we want it, he seems but to touch an electric 
button, and 'presto ! the timely book is on our table. 

"If there were any best among his five volumes, which are 
all excellent, we should aver that it is this, the author's last." 

The above Volames, or any of them, will be sent by Mail Post- 
paid, on receipt of the price by the Publishers, 

CHARLES SCRIBXER'S SOU^S, 743 & 745 Broadway, ^ew ¥ork. 



A3IOJVG THE HOLY HILLS. 

1 vol., 12mo, with a Map, $1.50. 



Prom tlte Commercial Advertiser (RTew Yorlc). 

"One of the most delightful and fascinating books of travel 
ever penned." 

From tile ]Ve"w York Observer. 

"A beautiful title of a beautiful book. Fresh, charming, pic- 
turesque, and instructive, breathing the bracing air of the Hill 
Country, and fragrant with the ilowers and fruits of that blessed 
land which the Master hallowed with His footsteps and tears and 
blood." 
From Rev. Ho-ward. Crosby, D.D., in a Letter to tlie Publishers. 

"I believe that the verdict of posterity will put Dr. Field's 
name first in the list of American travel-writers. His graceful 
style, his thorough mastery of language, his graphic picturing, 
his historical and political references, and his sound conclusions, 
make most fascinating and instructive reading." 

From tbe Poet R. H. Stoddard, in tbe Mail and iExpress. 

' ' The art of writing a book of travel that shall be as inter- 
esting on its own account as on account of the land it describes, 
is not given to many who go wandering up and down the world, 
and recording their impressions of it. . . . It is not what a trav- 
eller brings back from the scenes he has visited that we care for 
now, so much as what he takes with him to those scenes — the 
spirit that dra\vs him thither, and clothes all that he looks upon 

with its presence and its light No recent traveller has 

taken so much with him to the Holy Land as the Kev. Henry 
M. Field, or has brought back so much therefrom as he in his 
'Among the Holy Hills.' " 

From tbe Congregationalist (Boston). 

" Dr. Field has a power of blending description with reflec- 
tion which is rare, and the result is a vivid narrative, at once 
entertaining and instructive, and never failing in religious 
impressivencss The book should be in every Sabbath- 
school library, and will be read attentively, in spite of the many 
similar volumes in existence. The Map accompanying it is excep- 
tionally clear and helpful." 

From the Independent. 

"Dr. Field has, by his books of travel, established a perma- 
nent fame, and won an enduring prominence in the ranks of 
American authors." 



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